Most old people ... are disheartened to be living in the ailing house of their bodies, to be limited physically and economically, to feel an encumbrance to others - guests who didn't have the good manners to leave when the party was over.

A conversation isn't a competition.

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.

[President Obama] made so many promises. We thought that he was going to be -- I shouldn't say this at Christmastime -- but the next messiah.

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

Although I myself don't go to church or synagogue, I do, whether it's superstition or whatever, pray every time I get on a plane. I just automatically do it. I say the same thing every time.

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.