Jim Lehrer quotes:

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

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.

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.

You want to see an angry person? Let me hear a cell phone go off.

Make no mistake: When I told Senator Mitchell that I injected Roger Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs, I told the truth.

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

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

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

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.

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

I came from a family of Marines into the family of Marines.

I'm in the civil discourse business. I think it takes all kinds. And more power to everybody.

People can get their news any way they want. What I love about what's happened is that there are so many different avenues, there are so many different outlets, so many different ways to debate and discuss and to inquire about any given news story.

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

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.

There's always a germ of truth in just about everything.

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

Well, I don't know about objectivity, but I know for certain that it's always possible for a professional journalist who understands what he or she's up to to be fair, and that's the key word. Fairness to individuals, fairness to ideas, and to issues and whatever - that is critical, and that is also part and parcel of what the job.

I'm not in the being-annoyed business.

One of the problems is that everybody is used to the old-fashioned debate system, which is very controlled, and where the moderator plays a more active role.

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 McNamee is lying, then he has acted inexcusably, and he has made Clemens an innocent victim. If Clemens isn't telling the truth, then he has acted shamefully and has smeared McNamee. I don't think there's anything in between.

I started as a print reporter.

I've always said this and finally I had a chance to demonstrate it: The moderator should be seen little and heard even less. It is up to the candidates to ask the follow-up questions and challenge one another.

I'm a gatekeeper, and the gatekeepers all used to be mostly old, white men.

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'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 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.

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.

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

No two people see things the same way.

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

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

Preparation is based on one driving force for me and that is to be relaxed enough to be able to listen to what the candidates are saying and react appropriately.

Take risks ... be willing to put your mind and your spirit, your time and your energy, your stomach and your emotions on the line. To search for a safe place, to search for an end to a rainbow, is to search for a place that you will hate once you find it. The soul must be nourished along with the bank account and the resume. The best nourishment for any soul is to create your own risks.

The shouting and opinion and jokes don't exist if there isn't first a story.

I told the truth about steroids and human growth hormone. I injected those drugs into the body of Roger Clemens at his direction. Unfortunately, Roger has denied this and has led a full-court attack on my credibility

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.

As I say, I'm a discourse advocate. What form it comes is less important to me than the fact that there is discourse.

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

Let me be clear: Despite Roger Clemens' statements to the contrary, I never injected Roger Clemens, or anyone else, with lidocaine or B-12.

The death rate among Marines in Iraq has been more than double that of the other services.

I have no reason to lie and every reason not to. If I do lie, I will be prosecuted.

Well, to tell you truth, I have learned a long time ago that the trick when doing a debate, any kind of debate, is to just turn off the judgment switch in my head.

I was never promised any special treatment or consideration for fingering star players. I was never coerced to provide information against anyone. All that I was ever told to was to tell the truth to the best of my ability. And that is what I have done.

In television there are only about 12 people who do what I do.

The best nourishment for any soul is to create your own risks.

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 gaffes I've made have not been funny - they've been stupid.

I have been accused of something I'm not guilty of. How do you prove a negative? No matter what we discuss here today, I'm never going to have my name restored. But I've got to try and set the record straight.

Journalism is caring where the fire-engines are going.

I'm in the reporting part of journalism.

I'm not saying Senator Mitchell's report is entirely wrong. I am saying Brian McNamee's statements about me are wrong. Let me be clear: I have never taken steroids or HGH.

There are very few really stark black and white stories.

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

I'm an expert on the NewsHour and it isn't how I practice journalism. I am not involved in the story. I serve only as a reporter or someone asking questions. I am not the story.

I'm not in the judgment part of journalism.

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