Quotes from Tom Brokaw

Most patients enter a doctor's office or hospital as if it were a Mayan temple, representing an ancient and mysterious culture with no language in common with the visitor.

I played high school basketball at six feet, then I went to 5-11 in my 50's, and then, bang, I went down to 5-9.

There are lots of dimensions to being a cancer patient. The overwhelming one is that it takes over your life.

Cable penetrates 70 percent of American audiences now.

John F. Kennedy, the man I had thought would define the political ideal for the rest of my days, was suddenly gone in the senseless violence of a single moment.

I've been lucky from my earliest memory on. I happened to be born to the right parents, and the lives we led - working class, migratory - suited my personality. I had an adventurous mindset, and we lived on an Army base, then in South Dakota - it was a dynamic environment.

In the seasons of life, I have had more than my share of summers.

Peter will have a place in this brotherhood forever.

I had fractures in my spine that had to be repaired that came as a big surprise; nobody warned me that I might get some really severe, threatening fractures. It was painful, and I lost two inches of height, bang!

We live in a world where terror has become a too familiar part of our vocabulary. The terror of 9/11, in which al-Qaeda's attacks on America launched the nation into three wars - against Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Islamic State.

We don't play the celebrity business in our family.

The conceit of an anchorman is we never think we're going to die, I suppose.

A big part of making your own luck is just charging out of the gate every morning.

Think of it as your ticket to change the world.

There is no delete button for bigotry.

I'm not going to sit on the porch of the old anchorman's home with a drool cup.

When you run in places you visit, you encounter things you'd never see otherwise.

I wanted to see what was going on in the world. I sometimes think I overwished.

In Los Angeles, I had the good fortune of anchoring the news right before Johnny Carson came on, so to see him, the Hollywood stars watched me first.

Watergate was a constitutional crisis of the highest order.

I was unknown because I came to Washington from the West. I started covering Watergate. Immodestly, I'd say I did it pretty well, in part because it was hard to go wrong.

My family is not only attractive - I can say that because I'm paterfamilias - but they're really smart, and they're very, very compassionate.

I guess the issue that I have with all the news organizations that have a political MO, if you will, attached to them is that they sometimes jump to conclusions about what this will mean. Get ahead of themselves.

I'm not a big fan of journalism schools, except those that are organized around a liberal arts education. Have an understanding of history, economics and political science - and then learn to write.