Mike Wallace

I used to have acne when I was a kid growing up. You can imagine how serious that was in making you feel bad. And I had skinny bow legs. I mean, as a kid growing up, I was an insecure fella.

I'm nearing the end of the road and still learning.

There's not a better job in journalism than the one we have, seriously on '60 Minutes' - not a better job.

Covering Richard Nixon's triumphant run in 1968 turned out to be my last major assignment as a general correspondent for CBS News. In September of that year, '60 Minutes' made its debut and I began the best, the most fulfilling job a reporter could imagine.

I was always nosy and can you imagine a better 60 years, 40 of which or 37 of which traveling any place in the world.

To go around the world, to talk to almost anybody you want to talk to, to have enough time on the air, so that you could really tell a full story. What a voyage of discovery it was.

But I was never, you know, when I see some kids today who are close to their parents, close to their friends... I think it's simply wonderful. I was not a happy kid. Back in those days, I remember the sick, gray days were better. Because when it was sunny I'd feel worse.

I did what I felt that I wanted to do. Fairly selfishly. I didn't know my kids as well as I should have.

Yeah, I was a pretty good kid, you know, I was - I was- I was an overachiever and I worked very hard, played a hell of a fiddle.

My parents came from Russia and suddenly they wound up in Boston, Massachusetts, Brookline, Massachusetts and they felt the sun rose and set on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's backside because he meant so much to them. This was freedom. This was something totally different from the Russia they had left.

Can you imagine the most trusted man in America? Cronkite deserved it too.

If there's anything that's important to a reporter, it is integrity. It is credibility.