Ed Bradley

I would listen to how they told the story, to what elements they used, to how it sounded, and that's who I patterned myself after, the people who were on CBS News.

You know, I think I still have a sense that no matter what you do, no matter what you achieve, no matter how much success you have, no matter how much money you have, relationships are important.

Probably my mother. She was a very compassionate woman, and always kept me on my feet. And I think part of it is just the way you are, the way you're raised. And she had the responsibility for raising me.

Professionally, I remember Cronkite as a kid growing up, and more so for me, the importance of Cronkite was not him sitting there at the anchor desk, but him out there doing things.

My uncle was a hero, Lewis Roundtree. He was not even related to me really, but he was always called my uncle. He was like a father to me. I was closer to him than I was my father.

That's when I hit the ground. So in the instant that that round landed and blew me in the air, I had those separate and distinct thoughts. The guy who was standing right next to where I had been standing had a hole in his back I could put my fist into.

I always felt more emotionally attached to Cambodia than I did to Vietnam.

I had a lot of fun in Cambodia, much more so in Cambodia than Vietnam.

The Paris peace talks kept a roof over my head and food on the table and clothes on my back because if something was said going in or coming out, I had the rent for the month.

I made the decision to come back to New York, quit my job and move to Paris.

I stayed three weeks in Paris, fell in love with the city, and decided that I was born to live in Paris.

I had never been out covering a story, but boy, was that fun.

The only thing I'd ever done with news was to read copy sitting at the microphone in the studio.

Then I learned how to do wraparounds and things like that. I had no experience.

So I just got on the phone and the engineer just patched me in and I did reports. I'd get a community leader and bring him to the phone, call up the station and do an interview over the phone with the guy.

I had no experience with broadcasting basketball games, so I took a tape recorder and went to a playground where there was a summer league, and I stood up in the top of the stands and I called the game.

I did anything that would get me on the air.

I knew that God put me on this earth to be on the radio.

I will not go into a story unprepared. I will do my homework, and that's something I learned at an early age.

You can work hard to sharpen your talent, to get better at whatever it is that you do, and I think that's what it comes back to.

There was no one around me who didn't work hard.

I'd watch my father get up at 5 o'clock and go down to the Eastern Market in Detroit to do the shopping for his restaurant, and get that business going and then go out on his vending machine business.

And I realized that there was no sports reporter, so I started covering sporting events.

The people in your life are important. Meaningful relationships with those people are very important.

And I always found that the harder I worked, the better my luck was, because I was prepared for that.