Brian Williams quotes: the NBC and MSNBC media figure’s famous quotes on work, humanity, faith, even the hot water he found himself in recently.
“A person starts dying when they stop dreaming.”
“We are the people who won the second World War and saved the world. We went to the moon. We gave the world the cell phone and Bruce Springsteen. There’s no telling what we can accomplish.”
“You may find that making a difference for others makes the biggest difference in you.”
“I never suffered for lack of confidence. I knew I would succeed; you have to. I think I couldn’t go into any venture any other way.”
“It had to be ego that made me think I had to be sharper, funnier, quicker, than anybody else.”
“I walked out of college for the last time. I like to say to people I was in a big hurry and I needed to go make a living, and I never looked back. But the truth is, as the last college I attended, I look back every day. And I look in the mirror, and it’s one of my great regrets. Don’t forget that by being here today that you have now achieved something I was not able to achieve.”
“I found the secret of life to be body placement.”
“You are only as good as the coach thinks you are.”
“Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.”
“If you start pandering to young people, you’re going to get accused of simply giving people what they want.”
“Perhaps we are guilty of settling in to too comfortable a journalistic pattern, and perhaps this tragedy did serve as a reminder that this is what we do. I think too many people had forgotten that. There is a reason we show up after awful events. We really were the viewers’ advocates on this.”
“If I err, I err on the side of believing this is a serious business. Frankly, I think there’s too much talk about style.”
“I have searched my mind for some justification for why I can’t be reporting in a calm and heavily defended American city and cannot find one. I don’t like being told when I can and cannot walk on the streets and take pictures.”
“If cell phones are the new outlet for news, we’re there. If it’s computer screens, we’re there. I know there are changing habits, but they’ll come around to us.”
“Using iPads as cameras, for example, is like taking pictures with a cafeteria tray.”
“We call our online world a community, but that’s just to make us feel better. It’s not – this is. People to your right and left with hopes and dreams and fears. You have survived this already with them. So stop yourself, before you say something to your followers. Consider being a leader instead.”
“You don’t actually have to build a rocket and take us into space but please, take us somewhere. Please keep us moving, push us, lift us up, make us better.”
“With kindness one plus one always equals more than two.”
“It’s an amazing thing to help those that are in need, to feed those that are hungry, to comfort those that are suffering, and to tell them about salvation in God – and we’re called to serve. But when we pray, God hears us too. We can’t do everything… but we can always pray.”
“I had a very forward-looking, boisterous, Bea Arthur-like, loud, Irish-Catholic mother, who was the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. And based on nothing, she used to watch local news in New York and say to me: ‘I think you could do this. I think you could be better than these people.’ And I would say: ‘Mom, I’d love to have this conversation, but I have to mow the neighbor’s lawn.’”
“Every night I’m downstairs, I’m doing the broadcast that pays for your hobby and all this. That’s right, Fallon, Nightly News pays the bills. Act accordingly.”
“California is very much my home, and has been for the last eight years. It doesn’t matter where I am, the inner-me stays the same. Home is wherever I happen to be living with Tracey, my companion of the last 18 years.”
“I said things that weren’t true. I own up to this.”
“My wife and children seem to like me quite a bit, and as long as that is true, I’m really okay.”
Related: Katie Couric’s most millionaire quotes.
