Top 40 Gwen Ifill Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Change comes from listening, learning, caring and conversation.”

— Gwen Ifill

Featured in: Caring Quotes

2. “Act right all the time, because someone’s always watching.”

— Gwen Ifill

3. “I’m not really good at being predictive, so I guess I’m willing to be surprised.”

— Gwen Ifill

4. “Discrimination at any level sends a harmful message to youth, gay or straight alike, and that discrimination has no place in Scouting.”

— Gwen Ifill

5. “Journalists are accused of being lapdogs when they don’t ask the hard questions, but then accused of being rude when they do. Good thing we have tough hides.”

— Gwen Ifill

6. “There’s five factors or characteristics of places where kids from poor backgrounds don’t do very well. And those are places that have more economic and racial segregation, places with more income inequality.”

— Gwen Ifill

7. “This is what happens with a breakthrough. The first ones through the door often get bruised if not broken. Eventually, with a little political acumen and racial sensitivity and a lot of hard work, a smooth new place can emerge.”

— Gwen Ifill

8. “Our position has never been that people should be forced out of Scouting. We have always said that the values of Scouting are universal they should be welcome to everyone who is willing to live by the Scout oath and the Scout law.”

— Gwen Ifill

9. “Poor children in Baltimore face even worse odds than low-income kids elsewhere, mostly because they remain in impoverished neighborhoods.”

— Gwen Ifill

10. “I think I’m careful. My goal is to try to stay away as much from opinion journalism as possible.”

— Gwen Ifill

11. “If you take the same child and put them in two different places, it will dramatically shape the way in which their economic outcomes are realized later in life.”

— Gwen Ifill

12. “I’m not in love. I’m not out of love. I’m just trying to find some version of the truth.”

— Gwen Ifill

13. “It’s never too late to move to a good place to try to improve your child’s outcomes in adulthood.”

— Gwen Ifill

14. “It’s funny, everywhere I go some people ask me whether it’s going to be a Latino breakthrough, some people ask me whether it’s going to be a female breakthrough, and then I’m reminded that five years ago we didn’t even know Barack Obama’s name.”

— Gwen Ifill

15. “People do still cheer for the President. And some of the military audiences are more likely to cheer than others. I have seen him speak lately in front of groups like Freedom House, where the applause was a long time coming.”

— Gwen Ifill

16. “One of the unwritten rules in a presidential news conference is that he’ll answer questions. If he chooses not to, there’s not much you can do about it other than make yourself look like an idiot screaming, which to me is counterproductive.”

— Gwen Ifill

17. “When you are interviewing someone, you have a chance to follow up, to press, to dig in. In a debate there’s 30 seconds for the other guy, too. And the goal is to get them to engage with each other, not to engage you necessarily.”

— Gwen Ifill

18. “Hope springs eternal, even in politics.”

— Gwen Ifill

19. “We needed someone to recognize the importance of check and balances, accountability, transparency. There was a real systemic problem at South Carolina State, a problem that has gone on for 25 or 30 years.”

— Gwen Ifill

20. “I see a pretty bright line between analysis and opinion. And so, to that end, my goal on Friday nights is to try to assemble the smartest reporters who are available to me that week who have been involved in covering the news.”

— Gwen Ifill

21. “On immigration, there are a lot of hurdles before anything arrives at the White House.”

— Gwen Ifill

22. “History shows that people often do cast their votes for amorphous reasons-the most powerful among them being the need for change. Just ask Bill Clinton.”

— Gwen Ifill

23. “In the media universe we’re in, where there are people screaming on one end, there is no problem at all with having a little bit of extra politeness.”

— Gwen Ifill

24. “People are always surprised when they see me speak live that I have a sense of humor. And I say, Well, you know, there’s not much opportunity to laugh when you’re reporting the dread news of the day.”

— Gwen Ifill

25. “I actually think agendas are more often found in State of the Union speeches than in inaugural speeches.”

— Gwen Ifill

26. “Can’t disagree with the need for a grasp of history.”

— Gwen Ifill

27. “Did I say that the President’s entire job is image management? Of course not.”

— Gwen Ifill

28. “It’s not surprising that you wouldn’t see that side of me on television, but in real life I find the world to be quite a funny place.”

— Gwen Ifill

29. “I spent my career trying to speak to the broadest possible audience whether it’s in print or whether it’s in television.”

— Gwen Ifill

30. “Folks who are getting their strokes in the South are not as unhappy with Howard Dean. You don’t see anybody starting any movement to get him out of office.”

— Gwen Ifill

31. “It’s rare for a first lady to be running for president.”

— Gwen Ifill

32. “A lot of Democrats are not that upset with Howard Dean. Howard Dean gets out here and he says these inflammatory things, and he doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t back down a little bit.”

— Gwen Ifill

33. “If it were the Clinton people, they’d be sitting around figuring out how to pull themselves out. Instead the president is continuing to go around the country and peddling Social Security, which the needle is not moving on.”

— Gwen Ifill

34. “All of our panelists are deeply engaged in the topics at hand, so that leaves me free to convene a little dinner party, sans alcohol, and invite the rest of America to listen in.”

— Gwen Ifill

35. “Don’t count out other amazing programming like Frontline. You will still find more hours of in-depth news programming, investigative journalism and analysis on PBS than on any other outlet.”

— Gwen Ifill

36. “We used to say in the black community that if somebody else caught a cold, we caught pneumonia.”

— Gwen Ifill

37. “One of the things that Africa needs, everybody seems to agree, is some measure of debt relief.”

— Gwen Ifill

38. “I find that those who voted for George W. Bush are less offended by his religious references, and those who voted for Bill Clinton did not seem offended at all when people prayed at his inauguration.”

— Gwen Ifill

39. “Barack Obama didn’t get elected president, would never have been elected president, had he decided to run as a black candidate. In order to reach the broadest number of people you have to speak to their interests as broadly as you can.”

— Gwen Ifill

40. “No parent should be denied from their Scouting – their son’s Scouting experience simply because those parents happen to be gay.”

— Gwen Ifill

41. “I’m not quite certain how you can force a candidate to stick by the rules.”

— Gwen Ifill

42. “When the President was asked about global warming at a public appearance yesterday, he responded by talking about America’s addiction to oil. You make the connection.”

— Gwen Ifill