Barbara Walters

Barbara Jill Walters (25 September 1929 – 30 December 2022) was an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. Known for her interviewing ability and popularity with viewers, Walters appeared as the host of numerous television programs, including Today, The View, 20/20, and the ABC Evening News. Walters was a working journalist from 1951 until 2015.

Quotes

 * Now here I was, half Jane Wyman, half Shirley Temple, and people began to stop me in the street and say, 'Don't worry, Barbara, it's all right, you won't lose your job.' It was really very touching.
 * Chris Chase, "A Talk With the Unsinkable Barbara Walters", New York Magazine (March 25, 1974), Vol. 7, No. 12, p. 62


 * 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.
 * Chris Chase, "A Talk With the Unsinkable Barbara Walters", New York Magazine (March 25, 1974), Vol. 7, No. 12, p. 65


 * A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence and refinement so they think they will impress others with their command of obscure words.
 * How to Talk With Practically Anybody About Practically Anything (1970), p. 136


 * Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties.
 * How to Talk With Practically Anybody About Practically Anything (1970)


 * What kind of tree are you, if you think you're a tree now?
 * Interview with Katharine Hepburn (1981) after she compared herself to a strong tree in old age


 * She made me laugh. I will miss her. Baba Wawa.
 * Note sent to Gene Wilder, husband of Gilda Radner, following Radner's death from ovarian cancer; Radner had done an impersonation of Walters where she had poked fun at Walters' difficulty in pronouncing the letter "r", introducing herself as "Baba Wawa". Stated in an interview at Inside the Actors Studio.


 * We thought that he was going to be -- I shouldn't say this at Christmastime -- but the next messiah.
 * On Barack Obama, in an interview with Piers Morgan (December 17, 2013)


 * I can have respect and admiration for famous people, but I have never had a sense of fear or awe.
 * As quoted in "Barbara Walters, trailblazing TV icon, dies at 93" by Luchina Fisher and Bill Hutchinson, ABC News (30 December 2022)

Misattributed

 * The world may be full of fourth-rate writers but it's also full of fourth-rate readers.
 * Occasionally attributed to Walters; actually coined by Stan Barstow.


 * The sports page records people's accomplishments, the front page usually records nothing, but man's failures.
 * Occasionally attributed to Walters; actually said by Earl Warren, as quoted in Sports Illustrated (July 22, 1968)


 * A man cannot be comfortable [or cannot be made comfortable] without his own approval.
 * Occasionally attributed to Walters; actually written by Mark Twain in What Is Man? and other essays (1917), p. 17