Best 68 quotes of Barbara Walters on MyQuotes

A conversation isn't a competition.

A good laugh makes any interview, or any conversation, so much better.

A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence and refinement so they think they will impress others with their command of obscure words.

A Hot Fudge Sundae and a trashy novel is my idea of heaven.

A job is not a career. I think I started out with a job. It turned into a career and changed my life.

All of the religions - with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn't believe in a heaven - teach that heaven is a better place. At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.

Although I myself don't go to church or synagogue, I do, whether it's superstition or whatever, pray every time I get on a plane. I just automatically do it. I say the same thing every time.

A man cannot be comfortable [or cannot be made comfortable] without his own approval.

And I really do believe that the most important thing is the way you live your life on earth. But I think it's enormously comforting to believe that you're going to see your loved ones.

Après ski is my favorite sport.

A woman can do anything. She can be traditionally feminine and that's all right; she can work, she can stay at home; she can be aggressive; she can be passive; she can be any way she wants with a man. But whenever there are the kinds of choices there are today, unless you have some solid base, life can be frightening.

Because there are so many shows on and because I've been so hands-on - I've had a piece on almost every single week - I don't know how to cut back on that. You really can't.

Before we had airplanes and astronauts, we really thought that there was an actual place beyond the clouds, somewhere over the rainbow. There was an actual place, and we could go above the clouds and find it.there.

Being a parent is tough. If you just want a wonderful little creature to love, you can get a puppy

But for Muslims, everything that they don't have on earth is what they get in heaven. They can drink, they can have sex. All of the forbidden pleasures on earth, you can have in paradise.

Celebrities used to be found in clusters, like oysters - and with much the same defensive mechanisms.

Children are God's way of punishing us for having sex.

Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties.

Don't confuse being stimulating with being blunt.

Don't let the bastards get you down.

Don't worry about finding your bliss right now. Not even our President knew what his bliss was, nor did I. One of these days to your own surprise, your bliss will find you. But no matter what you do, participate, be there, full force, full heart, full steam ahead.

Every genius I have met could be classified as crazy by most people. They possess the highest level of sanity that us people find difficult to understand and accept.

First of all, the Jewish religion has a great deal in common with the Christian religion because, as Rabbi Gillman points out in the show, Christianity is based on Judaism. Christ was Jewish.

For Castro, freedom starts with education. And if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth.

Homogeneity is much to be admired - in milk, for instance - but not for parties.

I also found that for myself, since I've had no religious education, it was so interesting to see the different versions of heaven and what life on earth means.

I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the world from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information NBC piles on my desk.

I didn't get ahead by sleeping with people. Girls, take heart!

I didn't have a very religious family.

I don't know about you, but I can never get enough David Letterman.

I first interviewed Fidel Castro 39 years ago. He was charming and fiercely guarded about his private life. He called our interviews 'fiery debates.' During our times together, he made clear to me that he was an absolute dictator and that he was a staunch opponent of democracy.

If it's a woman it's caustic, if it's a man it's authority, If it's a woman it's too pushy, if it's a man it's aggressive in the best sense of the word.

I found it interesting that as people become more technically oriented all over the world, at the same time people are becoming increasingly spiritual. The success of the Da Vinci code - even though it was a great yawn - also showed people's interest in religion.

If you were a tree, what kind would you be?

I happen to disagree with the well-entrenched theory that the art of conversation is merely the art of being a good listener. Such advice invites people to be cynical with one another and full of fake; when a conversation becomes a monologue, poked along with tiny cattle-prod questions, it isn't a conversation any more.

I think most working relationships could benefit by excluding personal matters from the office chatter.

It's a fact that it is much more comfortable to be in the position of the person who has been offended than to be the unfortunate cause of it.

It would be nice to feel that we are a better world, a world of more compassion and a world of more humanity, and to believe in the basic goodness of man.

I was the kind nobody thought could make it. I had a funny Boston accent. I couldn't pronounce my R's. I wasn't a beauty.

Large cocktail parties are an infamous technique for ridding yourself of social obligations to people you usually don't know well or like much, which is such an unpromising beginning that I've rarely known one that recovered and turned into a great party.

Life sometimes brings enormous difficulties and challenges that seem just too hard to bear. But bear them you can, and bear them you will, and your life can have a purpose.

Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says she doesn't is someone whom I admire but have never met.

Most old people ... are disheartened to be living in the ailing house of their bodies, to be limited physically and economically, to feel an encumbrance to others - guests who didn't have the good manners to leave when the party was over.

Mr. President, Mrs. Obama. There is a photograph of you [hugging] that went viral, became the most shared photograph in the history of Twitter. How do you keep the fire going?

New York is a galaxy of adventure at once elegant, exciting and bizarre. It's a city that moves so fast, it takes energy just to stand still.

No one could ad lib like Peter. You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn't.

Parents of young children should realize that few people, and maybe no one, will find their children as enchanting as they do.

People sinking into self-pity and depression are dreary, but they can't get out of it by themselves. So every now and then, just sit there and listen, and listen, and listen. You're paying your membership dues in the human race.

politics ... is the hottest, most dangerous subject in the land. It's not only a conversation-wrecker, it's a friendship-wrecker, a family-wrecker, a job-wrecker, a future-wrecker.

[President Obama] made so many promises. We thought that he was going to be -- I shouldn't say this at Christmastime -- but the next messiah.