Jim Lehrer

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

“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.”

“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 deb...”

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

“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 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.”

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

“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.”

“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 luck...”

“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.”

“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 cha...”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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 wor...”

“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,...”