I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise.

It is my belief that one's salary is between an individual and the IRS.

Although I was entirely relaxed on camera, if I had to stand up and say something to an assembled group of people, I was rendered all but inarticulate.

My goal was to be a network correspondent by the time I was 30.

Texas was defined by its larger-than-life characters, particularly politicians.

Some news managers have been slow to grasp that good television news is always substance over form.

Anyone who writes an autobiographical work at the age of 34 is, at best, presumptuous. It occurred to me that it was time to set the record straight.

News reporting is a cycle: No matter how much you work at sending a message, it's only successful if it's received.

The code of the road is, if there is anything to eat, eat; if there is a place to sit, sit; if there is a restroom, go.

By far my most perilous assignment was covering a tank car explosion.

The single life is not one I willingly chose for myself.

Our free enterprise system of disseminating information is collectively referred to as The Media. But there is no collective.

The news anchor is exactly that - an anchor, a center, a focus.

Every time I am in danger of believing the glamour of my own press, some incident inevitably brings me back to earth.

Being a novelty had its advantages.

I don't exactly know what it means to be ready. A cake when the oven timer goes off? Am I fully baked, or only half-baked?

My current goal is to place a moratorium on goals.

A press card does not provide you with an invisible shield. You're flesh and blood.

One reason I left local news was that I was tired of the constant musical chairs among news directors.

In interviews I gave early on in my career, I was quoted as saying it was possible to have it all: a dynamic job, marriage, and children. In some respects, I was a social adolescent.

It had not occurred to me that marriage requires the same effort as a career. And unlike a career, marriage requires a joint effort.

Television is intensely personal.

For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.

To get it first is important - but more important is to get it right.

In real life, events seem much less dramatic.

The latest wrinkle is on wrinkles. There is a widespread belief that women can't grow old in television news.

Many senators have developed a canny sense of what will play best for the audience.

A fact of modern life is that it takes women longer to get ready than men.

Women may not have it easy, but we are given a fairer chance to reach for the top.

Never refuse an assignment except when there is a conflict of interest, a potential of danger to you or your family, or you hold a strongly biased attitude about the subject under focus.

Television news is a delicate balance of serving public good and private gain.

Newscasters cannot call attention to themselves by being too attractive or too unattractive.

Men still control the news, both on and off camera.

Women didn't want to watch other women on television because they were jealous of their husbands' diverted attention.

My most lucrative job in college was a stint as the regional Dodge Girl.

The most important event I covered was the Panama Canal debate, which dragged on for months.

I hadn't realized until I covered the police beat just how seedy crime is.

I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise.

No matter how many goals you have achieved, you must set your sights on a higher one.

I have had a lifelong phobia of snakes.

When I was a little girl in the 1950s, it would not have been possible for me to say, I want to be an anchorwoman when I grow up.

The idea of stardom was difficult to grasp. It was like being schizophrenic; there was her, the woman on television, and the real me.

When I first anchored in 1970, I had never seen a woman anchor a news show.

Walking into a room filled with people you don't know but who know you brings out your worst vulnerabilities.

In every interview I have ever read or seen or taken part in, the final question in our future-oriented society is always, What next?

When for so long you can't get a job for reasons that seem specious, you you finally do have it, you are constantly afraid of losing it.

Shootouts are not gunfights of honor, they're gang wars and racial riots.

The minute viewers callin or write about your looks, they were not listening to what you were saying.

Mistakes are not always the result of someone's ineptitude.