When in 1969 I became publisher of the 'Washington Post' as well as president of the company, my plate was fuller than ever. I had partly worked myself into the job but not, except for rare occasions, taken hold. I had acquired some sense of business but still relied on others more than most company presidents did.
There seems to me nothing very bad about a nation's capital having good intentions - and when the intentions are magnificent, so much the better.
I truly believed that other people in my position didn't make mistakes; I couldn't see that everybody makes them, even people with great experience.
Mother set impossibly high standards for us, creating tremendous pressures and undermining our ability to accomplish whatever modest aims we may have set for ourselves.
For more than eight decades, Washington has been my hometown. My whole orientation is toward this place.
To me, involvement with news is absolutely inebriating. It's what makes my life exciting.
I love Martha's Vineyard, where I have had a house for thirty years. I have loved visiting countries around the world. But I always come home to Washington.
If one is rich and one's a woman, one can be quite misunderstood.
One doesn't soon forget the natural beauty of Washington, although those of us who live here do sometimes take it for granted.
Mountain climbing was one of Mother's favorite occupations, but she never succeeded in inculcating this passion in any of us.
No one can avoid aging, but aging productively is something else.
If we had failed to pursue the facts as far as they led, we would have denied the public any knowledge of an unprecedented scheme of political surveillance and sabotage.
I remember the Washington in which I grew up as a genuine small town. Maybe this is true for everyone, that we all feel that the times in which we grew up were simpler, less complex.
Being a woman in control of a company - even a small private company, as ours was then - was so singular and surprising in those days that I necessarily stood out. In 1963, and for the first several years of my working life, my situation was certainly unique.
My mother seemed to undermine so much of what I did, subtly belittling my choices and my activities in light of her greater, more important ones.
The press these days should be rather careful about its role. We may have acquired some tendencies about over-involvement that we had better overcome.
Family ownership provides the independence that is sometimes required to withstand governmental pressure and preserve freedom of the press.
