Quotes By Jim Lehrer

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.

If we're going to have debates, let's have real debates.

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.

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.

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.

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

I'm not in the judgment part of journalism.

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.

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

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

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

I'm in the reporting part of journalism.

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.

My conscience is clear.

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.

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