Barbara Walters quotes:

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.

First of all, the Jewish religion has a great deal in common with the Christian religion because, as Rabbi Gillman points out in the show, Christianity is based on Judaism. Christ was Jewish.

Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties.

Motherhood is tough. If you just want a wonderful little creature to love, you can get a puppy.

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

Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says she doesn't is someone whom I admire but have never met.

But for Muslims, everything that they don't have on earth is what they get in heaven. They can drink, they can have sex. All of the forbidden pleasures on earth, you can have in paradise.

Although I myself don't go to church or synagogue, I do, whether it's superstition or whatever, pray every time I get on a plane. I just automatically do it. I say the same thing every time.

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.

Large cocktail parties are an infamous technique for ridding yourself of social obligations to people you usually don't know well or like much, which is such an unpromising beginning that I've rarely known one that recovered and turned into a great party.

A Hot Fudge Sundae and a trashy novel is my idea of heaven.

I also found that for myself, since I've had no religious education, it was so interesting to see the different versions of heaven and what life on earth means.

Don't confuse being stimulating with being blunt.

One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.

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

Parents of young children should realize that few people, and maybe no one, will find their children as enchanting as they do.

I found it interesting that as people become more technically oriented all over the world, at the same time people are becoming increasingly spiritual. The success of the Da Vinci code - even though it was a great yawn - also showed people's interest in religion.

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.

To not sing with an orchestra, to not be able to communicate through my voice, which I've done all my life, and not to be able to phrase lyrics and give people that kind of joy, I think I would be totally devastated.

And I really do believe that the most important thing is the way you live your life on earth. But I think it's enormously comforting to believe that you're going to see your loved ones.

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.

I regret not having more children. I would have loved to have had a bigger family.

Being a parent is tough. If you just want a wonderful little creature to love, you can get a puppy

A good laugh makes any interview, or any conversation, so much better.

It would be nice to feel that we are a better world, a world of more compassion and a world of more humanity, and to believe in the basic goodness of man.

I'm a wonderful editor. That's what I do best. I know exactly what I want. If I have to decide whether to wear the red dress or the blue dress or what should I have said, I am constantly changing my mind.

A man cannot be comfortable [or cannot be made comfortable] without his own approval.

The sports page records people's accomplishments, the front page usually records nothing, but man's failures.

Don't worry about finding your bliss right now. Not even our President knew what his bliss was, nor did I. One of these days to your own surprise, your bliss will find you. But no matter what you do, participate, be there, full force, full heart, full steam ahead.

To feel valued, to know, even if only once in a while, that you can do a job well is an absolutely marvelous feeling.

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

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.

Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna - or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out.

The news media in general are liberal. If you want to be a reporter, you are going to see poverty and misery, and you have to be involved in the human condition.

I didn't have a very religious family.

People sinking into self-pity and depression are dreary, but they can't get out of it by themselves. So every now and then, just sit there and listen, and listen, and listen. You're paying your membership dues in the human race.

The aging process seems to strike first at the mechanism which warns that we have been talking too much and the listener is growing restless. The signal isn't perfect at any age - drink, for instance, throws it right out of kilter - but it is almost non-existent in old people.

All of the religions - with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn't believe in a heaven - teach that heaven is a better place. At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.

Mr. President, Mrs. Obama. There is a photograph of you [hugging] that went viral, became the most shared photograph in the history of Twitter. How do you keep the fire going?

If it's a woman, it's caustic; if it's a man, it's authoritative.

I don't know about you, but I can never get enough David Letterman.

No one could ad lib like Peter. You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn't.

Most attractive males talk to most attractive women as if they were Rotarians comparing sales percentages in Des Moines.

I find very often people like to confront rumors. It depends on how much they trust you. And you have to have a line between what is tasteful and what isn't.

If the interview was done in the studio, Frank McGee would automatically do it. But if I went out and got it, then the interview was mine. So I was considered a pushy cookie, because I would get the interview.

Show me someone who never gossips, and I will show you someone who is not interested in people.

A man cannot be made comfortable without his own approval.

Because there are so many shows on and because I've been so hands-on - I've had a piece on almost every single week - I don't know how to cut back on that. You really can't.

The hardest thing you will ever do is trust yourself.

For a man who likes to talk, Fidel Castro does very few interviews.

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

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.

The feeling is that Fidel Castro's much bigger than he actually is.

Life sometimes brings enormous difficulties and challenges that seem just too hard to bear. But bear them you can, and bear them you will, and your life can have a purpose.

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.'

I didn't get ahead by sleeping with people. Girls, take heart!

A job is not a career. I think I started out with a job. It turned into a career and changed my life.

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.

This is what I tell, especially young women, fight the big fights. Don't fight the little fight... Be the first one in, be the last one out. Do your homework, choose your battles. Don't whine, and don't be the one who complains about everything. Fight the big fight.

Work harder than everybody. You're not going to get it by whining, and you're not going to get it by shouting, and you're not going to get it by quitting. You're going to get it by being there.

New York is a galaxy of adventure at once elegant, exciting and bizarre. It's a city that moves so fast, it takes energy just to stand still.

The origin of a modern party is anthropological: humans meet and share food to lower hostility between them and indicate friendship.

Most old people ... are disheartened to be living in the ailing house of their bodies, to be limited physically and economically, to feel an encumbrance to others - guests who didn't have the good manners to leave when the party was over.

Don't let the bastards get you down,

when your child is in trouble, the first thing you do is blame yourself.

Celebrities used to be found in clusters, like oysters - and with much the same defensive mechanisms.

A conversation isn't a competition.

I happen to disagree with the well-entrenched theory that the art of conversation is merely the art of being a good listener. Such advice invites people to be cynical with one another and full of fake; when a conversation becomes a monologue, poked along with tiny cattle-prod questions, it isn't a conversation any more.

Après ski is my favorite sport.

Every genius I have met could be classified as crazy by most people. They possess the highest level of sanity that us people find difficult to understand and accept.

I think most working relationships could benefit by excluding personal matters from the office chatter.

For Castro, freedom starts with education. And if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth. The literacy rate is 96 percent.

[President Obama] made so many promises. We thought that he was going to be -- I shouldn't say this at Christmastime -- but the next messiah.

If it's a woman it's caustic, if it's a man it's authority, If it's a woman it's too pushy, if it's a man it's aggressive in the best sense of the word.

Homogeneity is much to be admired - in milk, for instance - but not for parties.

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

The way you dress is the billboard that tells perceptive people how you feel about yourself.

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

The news media in general are liberals.

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.

If you were a tree, what kind would you be?

A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence and refinement so they think they will impress others with their command of obscure words.

It's a fact that it is much more comfortable to be in the position of the person who has been offended than to be the unfortunate cause of it.