Barbara Walters Quotes
American - Journalist Born: September 25, 1929

Motherhood is tough. If you just want a wonderful little creature to love, you can get a puppy.
Barbara Walters

One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna - or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out.
Barbara Walters

Wait for those unguarded moments. Relax the mood and, like the child dropping off to sleep, the subject often reveals his truest self.
Barbara Walters

A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence.
Barbara Walters

Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties.
Barbara Walters

Show me someone who never gossips, and I will show you someone who is not interested in people.
Barbara Walters

To feel valued, to know, even if only once in a while, that you can do a job well is an absolutely marvelous feeling.
Barbara Walters

The world may be full of fourth-rate writers but it's also full of fourth-rate readers.
Barbara Walters

If it's a woman, it's caustic; if it's a man, it's authoritative.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

The sports page records people's accomplishments, the front page usually records nothing, but man's failures.
Barbara Walters

A man cannot be made comfortable without his own approval.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

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

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

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

To not sing with an orchestra, to not be able to communicate through my voice, which I've done all my life, and not to be able to phrase lyrics and give people that kind of joy, I think I would be totally devastated.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

Don't confuse being stimulating with being blunt.
Barbara Walters

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

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.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

I didn't have a very religious family.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

I find very often people like to confront rumors. It depends on how much they trust you. And you have to have a line between what is tasteful and what isn't.
Barbara Walters

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.
Barbara Walters

Most attractive males talk to most attractive women as if they were Rotarians comparing sales percentages in Des Moines.
Barbara Walters

When you're interviewing someone, you're in control. When you're being interviewed, you think you're in control, but you're not.
Barbara Walters

I have affected the way women are regarded, and that's important to me.
Barbara Walters

I'm a wonderful editor. That's what I do best. I know exactly what I want. If I have to decide whether to wear the red dress or the blue dress or what should I have said, I am constantly changing my mind.
Barbara Walters

If the interview was done in the studio, Frank McGee would automatically do it. But if I went out and got it, then the interview was mine. So I was considered a pushy cookie, because I would get the interview.
Barbara Walters

I regret not having more children. I would have loved to have had a bigger family.
Barbara Walters


Shel Silverstein Quotes
American - Poet September 25, 1930 - May 10, 1999

Tell me I'm clever, Tell me I'm kind, Tell me I'm talented, Tell me I'm cute, Tell me I'm sensitive, Graceful and wise, Tell me I'm perfect - But tell me the truth.
Shel Silverstein

If the track is tough and the hill is rough, THINKING you can just ain't enough!
Shel Silverstein

To me, freedom entitles you to do something, not to not do something.
Shel Silverstein

I will not play tug o' war. I'd rather play hug o' war. Where everyone hugs instead of tugs, Where everyone giggles and rolls on the rug, Where everyone kisses, and everyone grins, and everyone cuddles, and everyone wins.
Shel Silverstein

You'd better get your laugh while you're making your point, or you won't be doing it very long.
Shel Silverstein

What you've got to say, you say.
Shel Silverstein

I myself do not believe in explaining anything.
Shel Silverstein

People are always giving you credit for really wanting to say more than you said.
Shel Silverstein

Never explain what you do. It speaks for itself. You only muddle it by talking about it.
Shel Silverstein

If you're behind the times, they won't notice you. If you're right in tune with them, you're no better than they are, so they won't care much for you. Be just a little ahead of them.
Shel Silverstein

I believe that if you don't want to do anything, then sit there and don't do it, but don't expect people to hand you a corn beef sandwich and wash your socks for you and unzip your fly for you.
Shel Silverstein

Stand-up comics reflect less of a visual humor and more of a commentary.
Shel Silverstein

I know a way to stay friends forever, There's really nothing to it, I tell you what to do, And you do it.
Shel Silverstein

Imagine - four years you could have spent travelling around Europe meeting people, or going to the Far East of Africa or India, meeting people, exchanging ideas, reading all you wanted to anyway, and instead I wasted it at Roosevelt.
Shel Silverstein

If you want to find out what a writer or a cartoonist really feels, look at his work. That's enough.
Shel Silverstein

He has the obligation to society that any human being has. I don't think a satirist has any greater obligation to society than a bricklayer or anybody else.
Shel Silverstein

There's a great myth about cartoonists, writers and people that are on TV.
Shel Silverstein

It's always a nice feeling, having people think that you feel things much deeper than you're allowed to say, but this isn't true. If you want to find out what a writer or a cartoonist really feels, look at his work. That's enough.
Shel Silverstein


Luanne Rice Quotes
American - Novelist Born: September 25, 1955

Anyone with a heart, with a family, has experienced loss. No one escapes unscathed. Every story of separation is different, but I think we all understand that basic, wrenching emotion that comes from saying goodbye, not knowing if we'll see that person again - or perhaps knowing that we won't.
Luanne Rice

One of my earliest memories is of seeing my mother in her beach chair, reading a book under an umbrella by the water's edge while my sisters and I played beside her. Of all the life lessons she taught me, that is one of my favorites: to take time at a place I love, restore my spirit with books and the beach.
Luanne Rice

'Safe Harbor' is a state of mind... it's the place - in reality or metaphor - to which one goes in times of trouble or worry. It can be a friendship, marriage, church, garden, beach, poem, prayer, or song.
Luanne Rice

What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and write. I'm lucky I learned that habit a really long time ago. I credit my mother with that. She was an English teacher, but she was a writer.
Luanne Rice

'Little Night' has layers of meaning. There's something enchanted about night. All those heavenly bodies, shooting stars, the crescent moon, celestial phenomenon. Owls fly at night, and first kisses happen. Night is romantic. Alternately, darkness hides the worst of human behavior.
Luanne Rice

Here are a few of the actors who have brought my novels to TV life: Bill Pullman, Holly Hunter, Frances McDormand, Julian Sands, Gena Rowlands, Rob Lowe, Julia Ormond, Chelsea Hobbs, Tate Donovan, Anne Heche, Max Martini, Campbell Scott, Kimberly Paisley-Williams, Alexa Vega, and the late legends Richard Kiley and Kim Hunter.
Luanne Rice

While novels are fiction, mine are usually very close to my heart. Like my other books, 'The Lemon Orchard' is inspired by something I care about. I care so deeply. The stories are my dreams, and I want to do a lot of research. Roberto is based on a real live friend of mine named Armando who worked in my garden.
Luanne Rice

I am a close friend of Robert Loggia. And I just love how, with actors, there's the screen persona. Here is Robert, known for his portrayal of many characters, including gangsters. But in real life, he is elegant and erudite. He sits in the garden reading the sonnets of William Shakespeare.
Luanne Rice

Several of my favorite cousins and some of my best friends are lawyers, and I find the profession endlessly fascinating.
Luanne Rice

I was married to a law student, and I used to attend classes with him at Georgetown University Law Center. Being of dramatic bent, I was drawn mainly to Criminal law and Evidence classes. A just-beginning writer, I would find an empty chair and listen, mesmerized, to the lectures.
Luanne Rice

My first three-sisters novel in a while, 'Sandcastles' tells the story of the Sullivan family - two passionate artists and their three wildly different daughters. There's also a renegade nun and a mystery man, but I don't want to give too much away!
Luanne Rice

I traveled to Ireland to research 'Sandcastles,' to visit the coastline where my ancestors looked toward America, the tiny town they once loved so much, and the docks from which they sailed toward their dreams of building a better life for their family. The answers I found on that journey are woven through the novel.
Luanne Rice

A lot of writers dream of feature films, but television - by way of TNT, CBS, Lifetime, and Hallmark Hall of Fame - has always called my name. And after seeing 'True Detective,' can there be any doubt that the storytelling on TV is as genius as it gets?
Luanne Rice

Hallmark makes beautiful films that feel as if they should be watched in a theater. The Hall family knows the power of stories, and they give us unforgettable movies with heart and depth and the resonance of classics.
Luanne Rice

I am honored to have had two Hallmark Hall of Fame Productions made from my novels - 'Silver Bells' and 'Follow the Stars Home.'
Luanne Rice

When I was married to an abuser, he'd tell me he wouldn't have to get so angry if only I'd be less demanding, more supportive, more understanding. I hid the truth from everyone, especially myself.
Luanne Rice

During one new moon at perigee, I stood on high ground, watching salt ponds overflow, cover the beach, and meet the ocean. Because the moon was invisible, the water was black as it drowned the sand, and the event felt primal - which in fact it was, because it was nature.
Luanne Rice

After 30 novels, release day is still a thrill. It's always a little bittersweet, too.
Luanne Rice

'Little Night' comes from deep in my heart, and tells about the lengths people will go for love.
Luanne Rice

My mother painted and wrote. She always had a painting in progress on an easel in the kitchen, so our house always smelled like oil paint. At night, she wrote after she'd put my sisters and me to bed, and the sound of her typing was our lullaby.
Luanne Rice

My father gave me an old Olympia portable when I was in fourth grade. Our ancestors came from Ireland. Our family stories of immigration helped me understand more about my characters in 'The Lemon Orchard.'
Luanne Rice

I went to Cork, Ireland, and stood on the dock some of my ancestors had left from. I felt their ghosts gather round me, and I cried to imagine what it must have felt like - leaving that beautiful land and those beloved people, knowing it was forever.
Luanne Rice

When my father died, I was 21, and he'd been sick for a few years. He changed during his illness. He kind of softened during it.
Luanne Rice