Quotes from Jim Lehrer

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.

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.

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.

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 started as a print reporter.

I'm in the reporting part of journalism.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

I'm not in the judgment part of journalism.

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.

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.

No two people see things the same way.

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