[Upon receiving a GLAAD award in 2008 for a report on transgender children] You can forget all the Emmys. This means more to me.

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

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.

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.

Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says she doesn`t is someone whom I admire but have never met.

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

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.

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.

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

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

I was inspired by the people who devote their life to their religion, in each case, whether you agree with them or not, trying to do good.

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.

[On interviewing] 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.

I didn`t have a very religious family.

No one could ad lib like Peter. You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn`t.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

A man cannot be made comfortable without his own approval.

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.

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.

Don`t confuse being stimulating with being blunt.

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.

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

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

I don`t know about you, but I can never get enough David Letterman.

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.

If it`s a woman, it`s caustic; if it`s a man, it`s authoritative.

I found talking to the young failed suicide bomber the most unsettling and depressing - that there could be that much hatred and ignorance.

The Buddhists feel that you are recreated as some thing, as an insect, or an animal, or a person, but that you`re not in some beautiful shiny place.

[advice from Don Hewitt, producer of "60 Minutes" (1968), in 1957] You`re a marvelous girl, but stay out of television.

Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties.

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

What I feel more and more is how important it is to live your life in a better way, and not to worry about it. What happens will happen.

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.

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.

My own opinion is that there`s far too little flirtation in our country as it is. Most attractive males talk to most attractive women as if they were Rotarians comparing sales percentages in Des Moines.

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.