“I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the world from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information NBC piles on my desk.”

politics … is the hottest, most dangerous subject in the land. It’s not only a conversation-wrecker, it’s a friendship-wrecker, a family-wrecker, a job-wrecker, a future-wrecker.

Don’t confuse being stimulating with being blunt.

The feeling is that Fidel Castro’s much bigger than he actually is.

If it’s a woman it’s caustic, if it’s a man it’s authority, If it’s a woman it’s too pushy, if it’s a man it’s aggressive in the best sense of the word.

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.

No one could ad lib like Peter. You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn’t.

And I really do believe that the most important thing is the way you live your life on earth. But I think it’s enormously comforting to believe that you’re going to see your loved ones.

[On being indecisive and changeable:] On my gravestone I want inscribed: ‘On the other hand, maybe I should have lived.

Homogeneity is much to be admired – in milk, for instance – but not for parties.

Life sometimes brings enormous difficulties and challenges that seem just too hard to bear. But bear them you can, and bear them you will, and your life can have a purpose.

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

I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the world from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information NBC piles on my desk.

Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties.

Wait for those unguarded moments. Relax the mood and, like the child dropping off to sleep, the subject often reveals his truest self.

I was the kind nobody thought could make it. I had a funny Boston accent. I couldn’t pronounce my R’s. I wasn’t a beauty.

Because there are so many shows on and because I’ve been so hands-on – I’ve had a piece on almost every single week – I don’t know how to cut back on that. You really can’t.