Tip O'Neill Quotes

I'm not somebody who runs from the press. I'm not coy. I appreciate the press I've had over the years.

I don't like everybody knowing what I'm doing, unless it's related to a movie. I don't like speaking to the press. I never did.

I don't really rate press conferences. It's not as though I leave the room fist-pumping my way down the corridor after a good one.

I don't talk about my personal life with the press.

I don't parade my family out for display, which is the way it will stay. Yet I have a reputation for being cooperative with the press. That's because when I do give an interview, I'm willing to tell the truth about what I do for a living and how goofy it is sometimes - and how volatile it can also be.

Actors should never give interviews.

I never mind doing press; it's never bothered me.

I like chatting with people. If people ask me a direct question, I give them a direct answer and I feel I've always done that with the press.

I think for more than half of my career, I have refrained from talking to the media.

I think it's important to keep things private, and there are certain boundaries I feel very particular about drawing. It may seem fastidious, but my experience of talking to the press is that I need those boundaries to remain very clear.

All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed.

The biggest difference between Kennedy and Nixon, as far as the press is concerned, is simply this: Jack Kennedy really liked newspaper people and he really enjoyed sparring with journalists.

I don't think it's the role of the prime minister to court the press.

I'm totally not media shy and do interviews all the time and go to events and totally play along and actually enjoy talking to journalists most of the time.

You can never get your message across if you're always answering their [reporter's] questions.

Theodore Roosevelt owes more to newspapers than any other man of his time, or possibly of any other time.

Doing the press has become as much of a job as getting in front of the camera. You have to avoid burnout, avoid saying anything stupid, but still come across as yourself.

I give thousands of interviews, and I'm probably about as open as anybody in Washington as far as access goes, so I'll continue to do that.

Talking to the press is not always good.

For me the most important is on the pitch, I don't like too much speaking in the press. I will do the minimum. I will do it because I have to do it.

Maybe the press in Spain do not like me because I do not give interviews.

People in the street will either call me 'Prime Minister' or 'Justin.' We'll see how that goes. But when I'm working, when I'm with my staff in public, I'm 'Prime Minister.' I say that if we're drinking beer out of a bottle, and you can see my tattoos, you should be comfortable calling me 'Justin.'

In an ideal world, everybody would find it easy to talk to the press... but not everybody is so excited.

When I go on 'The View,' or any of those talk shows, you really don't get to say what you want to say.

Every Hockey Canada event, the first day you just do a thousand interviews. You get used to it.