Welcome to the web’s most comprehensive site of quotations by women. 43,939 quotations are searchable by topic, by author's name, or by keyword. Many of them appear in no other collection. And new ones are added continually.
Search by Topic:
Find quotations by TOPIC (coffee, love, dogs)
or search alphabetically below.
Search by Last Name:
Search by Keyword:
Barbara Walters
-
“A conversation isn't a competition.”
-
“Parents of young children should realize that few people, and maybe no one, will find their children as enchanting as they do.”
-
“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.”
-
“The origin of a modern party is anthropological: humans meet and share food to lower hostility between them and indicate friendship.”
-
“Celebrities used to be found in clusters, like oysters — and with much the same defensive mechanisms.”
-
“Don't confuse being stimulating with being blunt ...”
-
“... politics ... is the hottest, most dangerous subject in the land. It's not only a conversation-wrecker, it's a friendship-wrecker, a family-wrecker, a job-wrecker, a future-wrecker.”
-
“Most old people ... are disheartened to be living in the ailing house of their bodies, to be limited physically and economically, to feel an encumbrance to others — guests who didn't have the good manners to leave when the party was over.”
-
“The aging process seems to strike first at the mechanism which warns that we have been talking too much and the listener is growing restless. The signal isn't perfect at any age — drink, for instance, throws it right out of kilter — but it is almost non-existent in old people.”
-
“People sinking into self-pity and depression are dreary, but they can't get out of it by themselves. So every now and then, just sit there and listen, and listen, and listen. You're paying your membership dues in the human race.”
-
“The way you dress is the billboard that tells perceptive people how you feel about yourself.”
-
“A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence ... ”
-
“I think most working relationships could benefit by excluding personal matters from the office chatter.”
-
“Large cocktail parties are an infamous technique for ridding yourself of social obligations to people you usually don't know well or like much, which is such an unpromising beginning that I've rarely known one that recovered and turned into a great party.”
-
“Homogeneity is much to be admired — in milk, for instance — but not for parties.”
-
“Small children do not belong at an adult party, and especially should not be used like trained midgets to help serve martinis.”
-
“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.”
-
“Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says that she doesn't is someone whom I admire but have never met.”
-
“[Grandmother Lillian Walters] proclaimed herself a virgin, to which Shirley naturally responded, 'How could you be, Grandma? You have seven children.' But my grandmother had the last word. 'I know,' she said. 'But I never participated.'”
-
“Après ski is my favorite sport.”
-
“[On being indecisive and changeable:] On my gravestone I want inscribed: 'On the other hand, maybe I should have lived.'”
-
“... when your child is in trouble, the first thing you do is blame yourself.”
-
“If it's a woman, it's caustic; if it's a man, it's authoritative.”
-
“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.”
-
“Show me someone who never gossips, and I'll show you someone who isn't interested in people.”
Barbara Walters, U.S. television commentator, producer, writer
(1931)