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.

Don't let the bastards get you down.

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.

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

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

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

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