“We grew up thinking that only men could do the big, important jobs. We always worry that we're not good enough. Do you think there is even one man out there who is worrying about what he just wrote? Not one. We're our own hardest critics.”
—Graham to a nervous columnist in 1984, quoted in The Washington Post
This summer I am home, in Washington, working as a journalist. My roommate is another female journalist, who said to me that for those who did not know her personally, one of the best things about Katharine Graham was her willingness to share her journey out of insecurity. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography, such moments were not confessionals. They could have undermined her authority, her stature as a person of power; they did not. Instead she managed to combine power and humanity. She had doubts. She had questions.
“Don't be silly, dear. You can do it.”
–Luvie Pearson to Graham in Personal History
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Letters
