Documentary Quotes by Leslie Cockburn

“Are you a journalist?” “I’m a doctor.” “Good. We need doctors, Wallahi .” Sadoon scowled. “Journalists only tell lies and smuggle carpets.”

— Leslie Cockburn

“But there are times, I would argue, when fiction delivers the greater truth.”

— Leslie Cockburn

When you do a piece of journalism, you may have to cut away 95 percent of what you are experiencing.

— Leslie Cockburn

When I was in London at NBC, I was the lowest man on the totem pole. I would go to diplomatic receptions to meet…

— Leslie Cockburn

After reading Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad when I was a student at Yale, I wanted to live in the world they captured in…

— Leslie Cockburn

When I was at graduate school in London, I began working at NBC News, which had a thriving documentary unit.

— Leslie Cockburn

When you have a situation that's destructive, when there's tremendous inhumanity everywhere, you see how humanity survives in all of its different permutations.

— Leslie Cockburn

“There are a lot of people missing in Iraq. Just the other day I heard of somebody asking $250,000 ransom for an Egyptian. Can…

— Leslie Cockburn

“Death was sweetened for the martyrs by the promise of 72 virgins waiting in paradise. She had researched the 72 virgins. The number wasn’t…

— Leslie Cockburn

I think the greatest thing about making a documentary is your ability to just follow the story and the subject.

— Leslie Cockburn

In documentary films, the most difficult thing to achieve is to make something complex appear simple.

— Leslie Cockburn

“You can take me to Petra, and sing for me in the ruins.” “Insha’Allah.”

— Leslie Cockburn