Top 40 Jim Lehrer Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “No two people see things the same way.”

— Jim Lehrer

2. “I’m a gatekeeper, and the gatekeepers all used to be mostly old, white men.”

— Jim Lehrer

3. “My own view, there is a need for and a demonstrated need for more journalism now than there ever has been.”

— Jim Lehrer

4. “Journalism is caring where the fire-engines are going.”

— Jim Lehrer

5. “I have been accused of something I’m not guilty of. How do you prove a negative? No matter what we discuss here today, I’m never going to have my name restored. But I’ve got to try and set the record straight.”

— Jim Lehrer

6. “I have no reason to lie and every reason not to. If I do lie, I will be prosecuted.”

— Jim Lehrer

7. “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.”

— Jim Lehrer

8. “I’m not in the judgment part of journalism.”

— Jim Lehrer

9. “I’m a journalist and that’s what I do.”

— Jim Lehrer

10. “People can get their news any way they want. What I love about what’s happened is that there are so many different avenues, there are so many different outlets, so many different ways to debate and discuss and to inquire about any given news story.”

— Jim Lehrer

11. “I’m an expert on the NewsHour and it isn’t how I practice journalism. I am not involved in the story. I serve only as a reporter or someone asking questions. I am not the story.”

— Jim Lehrer

12. “If people want bells and whistles and all of that, there are bells and whistles available. If they don’t want bells and whistles there are places to go where they are not available.”

— Jim Lehrer

13. “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.”

— Jim Lehrer

14. “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.”

— Jim Lehrer

15. “The best nourishment for any soul is to create your own risks.”

— Jim Lehrer

16. “I’m in the civil discourse business. I think it takes all kinds. And more power to everybody.”

— Jim Lehrer

17. “If we don’t have an informed electorate we don’t have a democracy. So I don’t care how people get the information, as long as they get it. I’m just doing it my particular way and I feel lucky I can do it the way I want to do it.”

— Jim Lehrer

18. “I have great faith in the intelligence of the American viewer and reader to put two and two together and come up with four.”

— Jim Lehrer

19. “I was never promised any special treatment or consideration for fingering star players. I was never coerced to provide information against anyone. All that I was ever told to was to tell the truth to the best of my ability. And that is what I have done.”

— Jim Lehrer

20. “You want to see an angry person? Let me hear a cell phone go off.”

— Jim Lehrer

21. “I’m not in the being-annoyed business.”

— Jim Lehrer

22. “Those who know me know I won’t hesitate to turn around and point someone out.”

— Jim Lehrer

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

— Jim Lehrer

24. “There are very few really stark black and white stories.”

— Jim Lehrer

25. “People can say anything they want to. If they don’t want to get the news from me, get it from somebody else. It’s not something I’m going to worry about, I’m sorry.”

— Jim Lehrer

26. “Most of the gaffes I’ve made have not been funny – they’ve been stupid.”

— Jim Lehrer

27. “The death rate among Marines in Iraq has been more than double that of the other services.”

— Jim Lehrer

28. “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.”

— Jim Lehrer

29. “Make no mistake: When I told Senator Mitchell that I injected Roger Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs, I told the truth.”

— Jim Lehrer

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

— Jim Lehrer

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

— Jim Lehrer

32. “Most of the stories I have covered in 45 years have been gray stories.”

— Jim Lehrer

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

— Jim Lehrer

34. “I started as a print reporter.”

— Jim Lehrer

35. “I came from a family of Marines into the family of Marines.”

— Jim Lehrer

36. “We have increasingly fewer and fewer journalists who have any military experience and understand what life is like in the military and in combat.”

— Jim Lehrer

37. “If we’re going to have debates, let’s have real debates.”

— Jim Lehrer

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

— Jim Lehrer

39. “There’s always a germ of truth in just about everything.”

— Jim Lehrer

40. “On a daily basis there are some huge ones that are, sure, from time to time, but it is helping the reader sort through all this sort of gray stuff out there.”

— Jim Lehrer

41. “The shouting and opinion and jokes don’t exist if there isn’t first a story.”

— Jim Lehrer

42. “If you go to the ball game, you don’t need to read the game story.”

— Jim Lehrer

43. “I believe an invitation from the Commission on Presidential Debates is similar to a draft notice – a civic responsibility.”

— Jim Lehrer

44. “I’m not saying Senator Mitchell’s report is entirely wrong. I am saying Brian McNamee’s statements about me are wrong. Let me be clear: I have never taken steroids or HGH.”

— Jim Lehrer

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

— Jim Lehrer

46. “If McNamee is lying, then he has acted inexcusably, and he has made Clemens an innocent victim. If Clemens isn’t telling the truth, then he has acted shamefully and has smeared McNamee. I don’t think there’s anything in between.”

— Jim Lehrer