Barbara Walters > Quotes

“There was something else that [Christopher] Reeve told me privately, off camera, and it made me grin. While he was lying in the hospital, just becoming conscious with tubes connected to all parts of his body, a doctor in a white coat came in and with a Russian accent, commanded: "Turn over!"
Are you nuts? Reeve thought.
I said: 'Turn over!'" the doctor repeated.
As Reeve was about to answer "the imbecile", he realized there was something familiar about the man in the white coat. He wasn't a doctor at all. He was Reeve's old buddy from acting school at Julliard, Robin Williams. Reeve waited for a breath, and almost choked with laughter. He realized, he told me, "If I can laugh, I can live.”
― 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

“Trust your gut”
― Barbara Walters

“What touched me the most about the Dalai Lama was his definition of the purpose of life. It was, he said, “to be happy." How does one accomplish that? I asked. "I think warm-heartedness and compassion," he replied. "Compassion give you inner strength, more self-confidence. That can really change your attitude.”
― Barbara Walters, Audition: A Memoir

“parties at the Argentine Embassy and had a very pleasant dalliance with Ambassador Orfila. We went out several times and I was startled when, out of the blue, he asked me to marry him. Was he kidding? I brushed off his proposal, if that’s what it was, and we continued to be friends. Maybe he just wanted an American wife. Orfila went on to become the twice-elected secretary-general of the prestigious Organization of American States (OAS).”
― Barbara Walters, Audition: A Memoir