Jim Lehrer famous quotes

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Hate #Rainbow #Soul

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Lying #Thinking #Telling The Truth

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Kids #Eye #Boys

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Names #Trying #Negative

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 ***** or HGH.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Taken #Brian #Steroid

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

#Mistake #Drug #Roger

I told the truth about ***** 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
-- Jim Lehrer

#Drug #Growth #Body

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

#Roger #Let Me #Clear

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

#Lying #Reason

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Stars #Player #Special

Most of the gaffes I've made have not been funny - they've been stupid.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Funny #Stupid #Made

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

#Marine #Iraq #Rate

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

#Wine #Blue #Purple

Journalism is caring where the fire-engines are going.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Caring #Fire #Journalism

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

#Games #Needs #Balls

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

#Men #White #Gatekeepers

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

#Years #Stories #Gray

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

#Writing #Important #Enjoy

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Long #Kind #Debate

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

#Literature #Turns #Know Me

I'm not in the being-annoyed business.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Annoyed #Being Annoyed

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

#Skills #People #President

I came from a family of Marines into the family of Marines.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Marine

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

#Men #Texas #Covering

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Views #Giving #Pieces

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Literature #Stuff #Helping

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

#Literature #Germs

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Long #People #Democracy

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#People #Bells #Want

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

#Thinking #Kind #All Kinds

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

#Phones #Cells #Want

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Technique #Answers #Matter

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

#Grateful #Marine #Who I Am

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

#Believe #Responsibility #Presidential

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

#Real #Debate

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

#Stories #Firsts #Opinion

There are very few really stark black and white stories.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Black And White #Stories #Starks

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#People #Way #Different

I started as a print reporter.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Literature #Print

I'm not in the judgment part of journalism.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Journalism #Judgment

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Sorry #People #Worry

I'm in the reporting part of journalism.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Journalism

I'm a journalist and that's what I do.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Journalist

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

#Views #Needs #Journalism

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Asking Questions #Practice #Experts

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

#Two #Together #Four

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

#Important #Facts #Form

No two people see things the same way.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Two #People #Way

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

#Military #Life Is Like #Combat

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

#People #Television

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.
-- Jim Lehrer

#Ideas #Two #Purpose