Quotes By Jim Lehrer

People can say anything they want to. If they don't want to get the news from me, get it from somebody else. It's not something I'm going to worry about, I'm sorry.

Best I can do for them is to give them every piece of information I can find and let them make the judgments. That's just my basic view of my function as a journalist.

Everyone should get their news however they want to and in whatever form they want. I'm not going to sit back in judgment of other people and the way they do it.

On a daily basis there are some huge ones that are, sure, from time to time, but it is helping the reader sort through all this sort of gray stuff out there.

Most of the stories I have covered in 45 years have been gray stories.

I'm not in the judgment part of journalism.

My Marine experience helped shape who I am now personally and professionally, and I am grateful for that on an almost daily basis.

I always wear blue shirts and I like wine or purple ties.

A debate has one purpose, one purpose only, and that is to facilitate the exchange of ideas directly between two candidates, and that's it.

My own view, there is a need for and a demonstrated need for more journalism now than there ever has been.

The best moderators are the moderators who are essentially invisible. A moderator who is there to be seen and heard and to be talked about either, 'oh, God, what a great question,' or, 'oh, God, what a lousy question,' that to me is a failed moderator.

I believe an invitation from the Commission on Presidential Debates is similar to a draft notice - a civic responsibility.

I'm in the reporting part of journalism.

I have great faith in the intelligence of the American viewer and reader to put two and two together and come up with four.

My conscience is clear.

My writing is extremely important, so I write every day. I just enjoy it. I get a kick out of it.

If people want bells and whistles and all of that, there are bells and whistles available. If they don't want bells and whistles there are places to go where they are not available.

I've traveled around the country and I read local newspapers and all of that, and it's a sad, sad thing to go from city to city and see the small newspapers and they're tiny. They're tiny not only in size but also in scope.

If you go to the ball game, you don't need to read the game story.

In order to reduce the deficit, there has to be revenue in addition to cuts.

If we don't have an informed electorate we don't have a democracy. So I don't care how people get the information, as long as they get it. I'm just doing it my particular way and I feel lucky I can do it the way I want to do it.

We have increasingly fewer and fewer journalists who have any military experience and understand what life is like in the military and in combat.

Those who know me know I won't hesitate to turn around and point someone out.

No two people see things the same way.

I wanted to be a bus driver when I was a kid. I look at bus driving through the eyes of a little boy. I see it as glamorous.

There's only one interview technique that matters... Do your homework so you can listen to the answers and react to them and ask follow-ups. Do your homework, prepare.

A skill required to be president is to explain to the American people any given thing they do.

In my case, I was covering politics in Texas as a newspaper man in the 1960's.

I'm a journalist and that's what I do.

I'm not in the being-annoyed business.