Top 40 David Talbot Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I actually do think the history is so epic that it actually kind of writes itself.”

— David Talbot

2. “Most magazines have become wallpaper, they’re all the same, all the same celebrities. It’s really an abysmal time in American journalism right now. But occasionally one story or two will pop out.”

— David Talbot

3. “We are upgrading UEX to a Buy rating; new CEO Roger Lemaitre changes everything.”

— David Talbot

4. “Journalism is not just a cause, its also a wacky profession.”

— David Talbot

5. “A lot of my idealism was frustrated by the end of the ’60s because of the way things went with the assassinations and the sense that the political establishment was so fixed in its ways you couldn’t change anything.”

— David Talbot

6. “During the Eisenhower administration, the Dulles brothers would finally be given full license to exercise their power in the global arena. In the name of defending the free world from Communist tyranny, they would impose an American reign on the world enforced by nuclear terror and cloak-and-dagger brutality.”

— David Talbot

7. “And this is as good a picture as any of how counterculture communities like the Haight took care of the war’s mangled souls: a doctor from a hippie clinic carrying a dying, emaciated soldier in his arms. For decades after the war, up to this very day, right-wing politicians and pundits have spread the libel about how peace activists and hippies greeted returning Vietnam vets with gobs of spit and contempt.”

— David Talbot

8. “People sort of take it for granted, but the more you see of the media world the more you appreciate a paper like the Times where its family continues to invest in editorial quality and I think it’s the truly is the best paper in the world.”

— David Talbot

9. “It’s like a cast of actors; you’re all working together closely under pressure to produce something everyday. And when we put up an issue, it’s like the curtains opening on a new play. I really like that daily sense of surprise.”

— David Talbot

10. “Do I regret taking the company public? Yes and no. Yes, because it put us under enormous pressure for a young company to go public at that point in its history, something you never could have done in the old days.”

— David Talbot

11. “Our country’s cheerleaders are wedded to the notion of American exceptionalism. But when it comes to the machinations of power, we are all too similar to other societies and ones that have come before us. There is an implacable brutality to power that is familiar throughout the world and throughout history.”

— David Talbot

12. “I came at age in the ’60s, and initially my hopes and dreams were invested in politics and the movements of the time – the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement. I worked on Bobby Kennedy’s campaign for president as a teenager in California and the night he was killed.”

— David Talbot

13. “I think there is a difference between Slate and Salon. I think we both serve important functions on the Internet. As more and more Websites disappear, I’m thankful Slate is still around because it makes things less lonely.”

— David Talbot

14. “Most Sunday magazines, with the New York Times as an exception, are kind of sleepy, weekend service vehicles to move living room products.”

— David Talbot

15. “After Watergate, which happened when I was in college, I became increasingly inspired by journalism as a way to change the world. It sounds corny, but to wake the public up, to serve a higher cause.”

— David Talbot

16. “They may be a little more high brow than we are.”

— David Talbot

17. “FCU’s PLS discovery has quickly become one of the most exciting stories in the uranium sector.”

— David Talbot

18. “Expect URZ stock to perform well as mining begins at Nichols Ranch.”

— David Talbot

19. “Even more important maybe, or equally more important at least, is they don’t have to scrap for a living.”

— David Talbot

20. “I got kicked out of high school, so I couldn’t get into very many colleges.”

— David Talbot

21. “We upgrade URZ to a Buy; we see an entry opportunity with investors.”

— David Talbot

22. “I knew I wanted to be a journalist ever since I was a teenager. While it is interesting and gratifying to be on the business side and to see how that all works, the main reason I kept a business role here was to protect the editorial integrity of Salon.”

— David Talbot

23. “The entire American media apparatus bought into the drug war – which is an enormously damaging and costly undertaking for this country – and there wasn’t enough critical reporting about it and that’s why it’s gotten out of hand.”

— David Talbot

24. “Other than that one year, Salon has been very cautious about the way it spends money. For instance, since last year, we’ve had virtually no marketing budget. It’s just word of mouth. And our circulation continues to grow that way by breaking news stories.”

— David Talbot

25. “When you’re kept by a patron you don’t have to duke it out in the media marketplace for dollars and for readers. In some ways that’s a blessing because it takes a lot of pressure off you.”

— David Talbot

26. “There are not that many new media brands you can say that about nowadays.”

— David Talbot

27. “If Dulles could use a person, that person was somehow real for him. If not, that person didn’t exist.”

— David Talbot

28. “I have no regrets about launching Salon. For the life of me, I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

— David Talbot

29. “EFR entered into an agreement to sell some noncore assets for $2.05M.”

— David Talbot

30. “While I’m critical to the Bush presidency, it’s been enormously beneficial for Salon because we’re seen as kind of an aggressive watchdog on the Bush White House. Particularly since Florida, our readership hit a whole new level, and we held onto those readers.”

— David Talbot

31. “My favorite thing is still journalism. I’m almost 50. This has been my life ever since I was in college.”

— David Talbot

32. “The entire economy, of course, is locked in a down cycle right now. Last time we weathered this was during another Bush presidency in ’90. We were locked in it for a year and a half and everyone came out of it.”

— David Talbot

33. “I know that doesn’t sound very radical and webby of me to say that but I think the New York Times is important. I also think there’s an occasional piece that will pop out.”

— David Talbot

34. “That little Kennedy... he thought he was a god.”

— David Talbot

35. “EFR has incredible leverage to the rising uranium price and its projects have massive potential.”

— David Talbot

36. “I now live in a ghost world, and not everyone who was once close to me wants to venture into this shadowy place to hang out with me. Some people are clearly spooked. I remind them of their own frailty and mortality. I get it; it’s understandable. But it confirms my spectral status to me.”

— David Talbot

37. “It’s vital that you remind everyone around you at the hospital that you’re still a human being, even when you feel like a gravely wounded animal. The hospital care providers were not my family, but I soon realized that I needed them to care about me as if we were connected by blood.”

— David Talbot

38. “I never could stand racism or indifference to poverty. That doesn’t make me a lefty ideologue. It makes me an ordinary American.”

— David Talbot

39. “In San Francisco, racism came at you with a smile.”

— David Talbot

40. “Moscone and Milk were the dynamic duo of San Francisco’s progressive revolution. They never forgot what they were elected to do: to fight for the burdened and afflicted, for those whose voices were never heard in the halls of power. They fought for the rights of workers, minorities, gays, and renters. And they made the same enemies: the chamber of commerce, developers, realtors, the SFPD.”

— David Talbot