Menu

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Jane Pauley Quotes

I probably am more shy than people realize. But I’m shy when I leave a studio and I am just myself.

– Jane Pauley

My goal is to see that mental illness is treated like cancer.

– Jane Pauley

I’ve always had a lot of ambivalence about fame and celebrity.

– Jane Pauley

I think the success of a talk show depends on how true it is to the personality of the person hosting it. The shows I really admire, like ‘Oprah’ and ‘Ellen,’ are distinctively like their hosts, so I think my show will be successful only if we try to stay consistent to my own sense of myself.

– Jane Pauley

I have a very good sense of tone, and it’s possible to talk about very personal things and maintain a level of dignity and even privacy – to go to the place, to talk about it, but not get icky.

– Jane Pauley

Kids learn more from example than from anything you say; I’m convinced they learn very early not to hear anything you say, but to watch what you do.

– Jane Pauley

In the beginning when I sat next to Tom Brokaw on the ‘Today’ show, the stories I was interested in were those having to do with women and children and learning and health. In those days, 25 to 30 years ago, that was called soft news, and not in a nice way.

– Jane Pauley

The years after 50 can be a time of great productivity, meaningful work, pleasure, creativity, and innovation. It’s a huge opportunity.

– Jane Pauley

At midlife, I think a woman has more in common with her teenage children than anybody else. We all are kind of uncertain. We realize for the first time in either our lives or decades that we’re in charge now.

– Jane Pauley

Because our generation has waited so long to have babies, we feel we’ve ‘discovered’ something that women have been doing for thousands of years. I have no illusions that I will be in the same situation as the average working mother. I’m not trying to prove anything – I just want to have kids.

– Jane Pauley

We’re going to live longer than our parents’ generation, and there comes a point when you ask yourself, ‘What am I going do?’ You can only play so much golf.

– Jane Pauley

I see myself as life-sized, certainly not a supersized personality, and apparently after 30 years of television, that’s what the audience thinks of me as well. I know this because for the first time in my career, I’ve just seen market research, and the thing I am known for is being authentic.

– Jane Pauley

I think my children know that Mother’s priority is to be with them first. But I don’t think it has to be an either/or situation. Work is very important to me, and it wouldn’t be in the best interest of my children for me to stay home seven days a week.

– Jane Pauley

I had had some months of depression. Not serious enough to keep me from work. So, I guess you’d call that a mild depression. It was becoming worse. And I was being treated for it with anti-depressants.

– Jane Pauley

I’ve come to recognize what I call my ‘inside interests.’ Telling stories. And helping people tell their stories is a sort of interpersonal gardening. My work at NBC News was to report the news, but in hindsight, I often tried to look for some insight to share that might spark a moment of recognition in a viewer.

– Jane Pauley

My tides were fluctuating, too – back and forth, back and forth – sometimes so fast they seemed to be spinning. They call this ‘rapid cycling.’ It’s a marvel that a person can appear to be standing still when the mood tides are sloshing back and forth, sometimes sweeping in both directions at once. They call that a ‘mixed state.’

– Jane Pauley

My son has been known to throw a book at the television set when he called for me to come play and I was obviously busy in the box. But I’m told that children of television performers grow up thinking that all mommies or daddies work on TV and that it’s no big deal.

– Jane Pauley

Nobody calls me silly. That is not a word that applies to me.

– Jane Pauley

I came back to work when my children were two months old. At that early age, they seem to have little awareness of anybody but their Raggedy Ann dolls, so it wasn’t a matter of them missing me. I was missing them.

– Jane Pauley

My father was so good-natured and had such a happy disposition. I’ve always confused him with Jimmy Stewart. So, think Jimmy Stewart. That’s my dad.

– Jane Pauley

New Yorkers, by reputation, are fast-talking, assertive and easily annoyed; I fit right in.

– Jane Pauley

I’ve always been profoundly ambivalent about fame. I think it just eats the reality out of you and it can be intoxicating because I like some of it.

– Jane Pauley

I’m not driven by killer ambition. I’m not a workaholic. I’m a good team player. I don’t have to be captain, but I do want to play on a winning team.

– Jane Pauley

A diagnosis is burden enough without being burdened by secrecy and shame.

– Jane Pauley

‘Good Morning America’ exploited Joan Lunden’s pregnancy, but you won’t see me bringing my babies on the air. The only reason I’m talking about the babies at all is that they’ve been with me on the show since I became pregnant. After a while, I had to acknowledge this pumpkin tummy.

– Jane Pauley

I do like some of the perks, like being, recognized, especially if I’ve had my makeup done and I’m going to be photographed and people admire me. Who wouldn’t like that?

– Jane Pauley

I have been fiercely private, in part because I could never understand how a journalist could be otherwise. I was also the mother of small children, and security concerns were paramount.

– Jane Pauley

I envy people with dreams and passions, but I don’t think that way. I still don’t have a ‘bliss’ to follow. For people like me – I suspect that’s most people – holding out for a ‘dream’ or a ‘passion’ is paralyzing. I just like having work I enjoy that feels meaningful. That’s hard enough… but it’s enough.

– Jane Pauley

I had had some months of depression. Not serious enough to keep me from work. So, I guess you’d call that a mild depression.

– Jane Pauley

I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine being an American icon! It would be pretty difficult to look at your face in the mirror and think of yourself as that without laughing and spitting toothpaste all over!

– Jane Pauley

- 1
- 2