“All of the religions – with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn’t believe in a heaven – teach that heaven is a better place. At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.”

Just do your job. Get in early. Stay late, and don’t complain. Fight the big fights.

Children are God’s way of punishing us for having sex.

First of all, the Jewish religion has a great deal in common with the Christian religion because, as Rabbi Gillman points out in the show, Christianity is based on Judaism. Christ was Jewish.

The aging process seems to strike first at the mechanism which warns that we have been talking too much and the listener is growing restless. The signal isn’t perfect at any age – drink, for instance, throws it right out of kilter – but it is almost non-existent in old people.

The news media in general are liberal. If you want to be a reporter, you are going to see poverty and misery, and you have to be involved in the human condition.

I didn’t get ahead by sleeping with people. Girls, take heart!

To excel is to reach your own highest dream. But you must also help others, where and when you can, to reach theirs. Personal gain is empty if you do not feel you have positively touched another’s life.

I didn’t have a very religious family.

To feel valued, to know, even if only once in a while, that you can do a job well is an absolutely marvelous feeling.

It’s a fact that it is much more comfortable to be in the position of the person who has been offended than to be the unfortunate cause of it.

When you’re interviewing someone, you’re in control. When you’re being interviewed, you think you’re in control, but you’re not.

Most attractive males talk to most attractive women as if they were Rotarians comparing sales percentages in Des Moines.

But for Muslims, everything that they don’t have on earth is what they get in heaven. They can drink, they can have sex. All of the forbidden pleasures on earth, you can have in paradise.

Celebrities used to be found in clusters, like oysters – and with much the same defensive mechanisms.

I first interviewed Fidel Castro 39 years ago. He was charming and fiercely guarded about his private life. He called our interviews ‘fiery debates.’ During our times together, he made clear to me that he was an absolute dictator and that he was a staunch opponent of democracy.

A job is not a career. I think I started out with a job. It turned into a career and changed my life.

Suttas are not meant to be ‘sacred scriptures’ that tell us what to believe.

Instead of becoming the world’s expert on Buddhism, just let go, let go, let go.

To define Buddhism without a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say, ‘Don’t cling or hold on to anything. Harmonize with actuality, with things as they are.’

To observe and watch one’s own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues.

The goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians.

It just seemed like Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism – because that’s mainly what I’ve been exposed to – was a real solid organization of teachings to point someone in the right direction.

Some real well thought out stuff. But I don’t know, like, every last detail about Buddhism.

I’m expressin’ with my full capabilities, And now I’m livin in correctional facilities. Cause some don’t agree with how I do this, I get straight and meditate like a Buddhist.