"I'm a strange mixture of my mother's curiosity; my father, who grew up the son of the manse in a Presbyterian family, who had a tremendous sense of duty and responsibility; and my mother's father, who was always in trouble with gambling debts"
About this Quote
The line about his mother’s curiosity gives him the approved motive: inquisitiveness, hunger for information, a temperament that fits publishing without sounding predatory. Then he pivots to his father’s Presbyterian “sense of duty and responsibility,” borrowing a moral spine from a world of restraint and civic seriousness. That phrase “son of the manse” is doing heavy class-and-culture lifting: it signals respectability, discipline, and an inherited familiarity with authority. In Murdoch’s hands, it doubles as a pre-emptive defense. If his papers are ruthless, it’s because responsibility demanded it.
The kicker is the maternal grandfather with gambling debts: a confession that reads like a wink. He frames risk not as recklessness but as lineage, a kind of family permission slip for betting big, courting scandal, playing the odds. “Always in trouble” is deliberately vague, softening what could be ruin into roguish energy. The subtext is legacy management: Murdoch casts his controversial instincts as a balanced inheritance rather than a chosen strategy.
Context matters because publishers aren’t judged only on profits; they’re judged on influence. This quote works as reputational architecture, a way to make ambition sound inevitable, even virtuous, while smuggling in the thrill of the gamble that has defined his career.
Quote Details
| Topic | Family |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Murdoch, Rupert. (n.d.). I'm a strange mixture of my mother's curiosity; my father, who grew up the son of the manse in a Presbyterian family, who had a tremendous sense of duty and responsibility; and my mother's father, who was always in trouble with gambling debts. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-a-strange-mixture-of-my-mothers-curiosity-my-8913/
Chicago Style
Murdoch, Rupert. "I'm a strange mixture of my mother's curiosity; my father, who grew up the son of the manse in a Presbyterian family, who had a tremendous sense of duty and responsibility; and my mother's father, who was always in trouble with gambling debts." FixQuotes. Accessed February 2, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-a-strange-mixture-of-my-mothers-curiosity-my-8913/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I'm a strange mixture of my mother's curiosity; my father, who grew up the son of the manse in a Presbyterian family, who had a tremendous sense of duty and responsibility; and my mother's father, who was always in trouble with gambling debts." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-a-strange-mixture-of-my-mothers-curiosity-my-8913/. Accessed 2 Feb. 2026.
