Quotes By Jim Lehrer

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.

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

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'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.

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.

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.

I'm not in the judgment part of journalism.

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

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.

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'm in the reporting part of journalism.

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.

In order to reduce the deficit, there has to be revenue in addition to cuts.

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

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.

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.

No two people see things the same way.