Remembering Barbara Walters With 20 of Her Most Interesting, Profound Quotes

—"The hardest thing you will ever do is trust yourself."

Barbara Walters was not only a pioneer and trailblazer for women in journalism, but also for working women in general. Walters, who died on Dec. 30, won a dozen Emmys during her time as a news anchor and reporter (mainly for ABC). She has famously interviewed world leaders and political figures like Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Vaclav Havel and Vladimir Putin to celebrities such as Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Monica Lewinsky and Katherine Hepburn.

Related: Barbara Walters 10 Best Interviews

Throughout her years as a journalist, Walters has made dozens of memorable quotes. Here are 20 of our favorites.

Barbara Walter Quotes

—"This is what I tell, especially young women, fight the big fights. Don't fight the little fight... Be the first one in, be the last one out. Do your homework, choose your battles. Don't whine, and don't be the one who complains about everything. Fight the big fight."

—“A job is not a career. I think I started out with a job. It turned into a career and changed my life."

—"The hardest thing you will ever do is trust yourself."

—"To excel is to reach your own highest dream. But you must also help others, where and when you can, to reach theirs. Personal gain is empty if you do not feel you have positively touched another's life."

—"Life sometimes brings enormous difficulties and challenges that seem just too hard to bear. But bear them you can, and bear them you will, and your life can have a purpose."

—"Don't let the bastards get you down."

—"A good laugh makes any interview, or any conversation, so much better."

—"Wait for those unguarded moments. Relax the mood and, like the child dropping off to sleep, the subject often reveals his truest self."

—"Show me someone who never gossips, and I’ll show you someone who isn’t interested in people."

Related: Read the Most Heartfelt Tributes to Barbara Walters

—"A Hot Fudge Sundae and a trashy novel is my idea of heaven."

—"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."

—"Children are God's way of punishing us for having sex."

—"To feel valued, to know, even if only once in a while, that you can do a job well is an absolutely marvelous feeling."

—"Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says she doesn’t is someone whom I admire but have never met."

—"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."

—"If it's a woman it's caustic, if it's a man it's authority, If it's a woman it's too pushy, if it's a man it's aggressive in the best sense of the word."

—"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."

—"Every genius I have met could be classified as crazy by most people. They possess the highest level of sanity that us people find difficult to understand and accept."

—"Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says she doesn't is someone whom I admire but have never met."

—"Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties."

—"Being a parent is tough. If you just want a wonderful little creature to love, you can get a puppy."

—"When you're interviewing someone, you're in control. When you're being interviewed, you think you're in control, but you're not."

—"On my gravestone I want inscribed: 'On the other hand, maybe I should have lived.'"

—"Parents of young children should realize that few people, and maybe no one, will find their children as enchanting as they do."

—"If you were a tree, what kind would you be?"

Next, Watch Barbara Walters Roast Herself on Saturday Night Live