I did Lassie for six years and I never had anybody come up to me and say, 'It made me want to be a farmer.'

I guess the producers saw me and knew I was literate and I always tried to be alert and it's funny because you have to have a sharpness to do those shows, especially some of the ones I did in later years.

It was a show where you were given a quote out of current events and you had to identify who said it. I was reading eight newspapers a day and had compiled a file of about 300 quotes. I really had to do my research. The White House press didn't have to bone up on any of it.

No one will ever shine in conversation, who thinks of saying fine things: to please, one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad.

The one book necessary to be understood by a divine, is the Bible; any others are to be read, chiefly, in order to understand that.

In all my travels I never met with any one Scotchman but what was a man of sense: I believe everybody of that country that has any, leaves it as fast as they can.