"He had such wonderful guts. He defied the social fears which make cowards of most of us. He was his own person in the ice age of big, controlling institutions and organizations. He could stand alone and stand apart and therefore stand for what he believed in." “Stone was the most intractably independent of reporters. He was relentless in exposing evasion and made no concessions to the person who was improving on the truth. If you didn't resort to phony explanations you had no problem with Izzy and I very early on learned that.” “Many miss the point that Stone wasn’t just looking up facts and comparing them; he knew how to connect each piece of string, what to do with them when he found them. The Washington Post and contemporary news room mentality is to find the extraordinary ‘holy shit’ story. That was offensive to Izzy. He wouldn’t give up ten pieces of the puzzle for the instant scoop. He preferred quieter scoops that meant something. He looked at journalism as a political act. The reason you do it is to try to keep the political dialogue honest. Izzy gave you a gift, encouraging you to persevere and convince other people. That is what journalism is all about." "He was so revered by all of us because in a world where talk is cheap and there are many cheap talkers, Izzy actually believed in what he wrote and said. There was a kind of integrity that is missing today.” "Izzy was the only journalist, surely, who comes close to the notion of genius." "Never far from his autodidactic grounding in the classics and philosophy, Stone possessed a memory of confounding accuracy; a scholar's grasp of the past which he applied to current events with dazzling relevance; a trial lawyer's proclivity for the tough question. Coupled with these attributes, Stone's skepticism regarding the professed nobility of government intentions served him well." The above tributes were taken from interviews associated with Myra MacPherson's All Government's Lie.
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