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.

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

Small children do not belong at an adult party, and especially should not be used like trained midgets to help serve martinis.

The word 'charismatic' was made for Fidel Castro. You would have liked him, I would have liked him. Then you had to stop and say, 'Just a minute. This is a man who does not believe in freedom of the press...does not believe in democracy as we know democracy, had political prisoners.'

Show me someone who never gossips, and I'll show you someone who isn't interested in people.

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.