Jim Lehrer

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

As I say, I'm a discourse advocate. What form it comes is less important to me than the fact that there is discourse.

I came from a family of Marines into the family of Marines.

My Marine experience helped shape who I am now personally and professionally, and I am grateful for that on an almost daily basis.

My writing is extremely important, so I write every day. I just enjoy it. I get a kick out of it.

I wanted to be a bus driver when I was a kid. I look at bus driving through the eyes of a little boy. I see it as glamorous.

In television there are only about 12 people who do what I do.

The best moderators are the moderators who are essentially invisible. A moderator who is there to be seen and heard and to be talked about either, 'oh, God, what a great question,' or, 'oh, God, what a lousy question,' that to me is a failed moderator.

I always wear blue shirts and I like wine or purple ties.

Most of the gaffes I've made have not been funny - they've been stupid.

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

I'm not in the being-annoyed business.

In my case, I was covering politics in Texas as a newspaper man in the 1960's.

Best I can do for them is to give them every piece of information I can find and let them make the judgments. That's just my basic view of my function as a journalist.

If you go to the ball game, you don't need to read the game story.

One of the problems is that everybody is used to the old-fashioned debate system, which is very controlled, and where the moderator plays a more active role.

My conscience is clear.

I've always said this and finally I had a chance to demonstrate it: The moderator should be seen little and heard even less. It is up to the candidates to ask the follow-up questions and challenge one another.

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.

A debate has one purpose, one purpose only, and that is to facilitate the exchange of ideas directly between two candidates, and that's it.

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.

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

Well, I don't know about objectivity, but I know for certain that it's always possible for a professional journalist who understands what he or she's up to to be fair, and that's the key word. Fairness to individuals, fairness to ideas, and to issues and whatever - that is critical, and that is also part and parcel of what the job.

I believe an invitation from the Commission on Presidential Debates is similar to a draft notice - a civic responsibility.

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.