Before we had airplanes and astronauts, we really thought that there was an actual place beyond the clouds, somewhere over the rainbow. There was an actual place, and we could go above the clouds and find it.there.

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.

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 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 woman can do anything. She can be traditionally feminine and that's all right; she can work, she can stay at home; she can be aggressive; she can be passive; she can be any way she wants with a man. But whenever there are the kinds of choices there are today, unless you have some solid base, life can be frightening.

A conversation isn't a competition.

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