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"  Originally published in the January 2002 issue. Barbara Walters is reported to be nearing retirement. I don&amp;#039;t want to sound like I&amp;#039;ve been around since the Civil War, but there has been enormous change since I started. When I began at NBC, I was the only female writer on the Today show. Another female couldn&amp;#039;t get a job unless the woman writer either got married or died. Literally.  Sometimes my parents taught me lessons because they taught me lessons. More often, they taught me lessons without knowing it. My father was very generous in nature and a gambler by instinct, and like many men at that time who were big showmen, he died broke. The lesson he taught me was not to worry. The lesson I learned was to worry. Timing is luck. Timing is tragedy. Luck is luck...and hard work. I had a sister who was mildly retarded. Just enough to ruin her life. She stuttered and other kids made fun of her. People didn&amp;#039;t understand what it was. My sister broke my heart. She taught me how cruel people could be. She also taught me compassion. I always think of how difficult it was for my sister, and she was never, ever jealous of me. Talk about my sister and I automatically cry. Some wounds can&amp;#039;t be healed. Friendship to me is a golden, beautiful, shiny word.  My favorite thing about New York is New Yorkers. Katharine Hepburn was talking about seeing things in black and white. That&amp;#039;s what so many people respect about her -- that she&amp;#039;s so definite. I had just come back from the Middle East, interviewing Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat. I told her that and said, &amp;quot;Ms. Hepburn, I don&amp;#039;t see things in black and white very often. I see things in shades of gray.&amp;quot; And she said, &amp;quot;Well, I pity you.&amp;quot; My biggest regret -- and I regret it every day, yet I don&amp;#039;t do anything about it -- is that I&amp;#039;ve never kept a diary.  I&amp;#039;m fairly introverted. You know how women can get up and dance alone? I can&amp;#039;t do it. I&amp;#039;m afraid everyone is looking at me. Yet I can get up in front of ten thousand people and talk.  Oprah has said that she copied me when she began and then she decided to become Oprah -- which was a great decision. My daughter has given my life a meaning that none of my work could ever make up for.  When my daughter was much younger, I walked into her room while she was watching Saturday Night Live. Gilda Radner was doing the Baba Wawa skit. I said, &amp;quot;Isn&amp;#039;t that awful!&amp;quot; And she said, &amp;quot;Oh, Mother! Lighten up!&amp;quot; And I did. I thought, What am I so serious about? In a funny way, it&amp;#039;s a compliment. I still don&amp;#039;t like it, but, I mean, you can kind of see it. The Ba-Ba. By the way, I now pronounce my r&amp;#039;s much better than I did then. For me, everything has changed since September eleventh. Superficial things mean less to me. I&amp;#039;m not walking around with fear. I don&amp;#039;t have a gas mask. But I have a different sense of awareness. Things will never be the same. My favorite saying is &amp;quot;This, too, shall pass.&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t read about myself. I tell my assistants, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t want to see it. Don&amp;#039;t even tell me what&amp;#039;s in it.&amp;quot; It does you no good. For stress, everybody has their own thing. For me, it&amp;#039;s taking a bath. Alan Greenspan takes his in the morning, and I take mine at night. Now, Alan Greenspan and I are very close friends. I have read that he takes baths in the morning. I have not been a witness, okay? Sex, if it&amp;#039;s right, is passion. It&amp;#039;s great and exciting, and it may or may not have anything to do with love.  People say about me, &amp;quot;Oh, they&amp;#039;re going to carry her out feet first.&amp;quot; Absolutely not. I will not be doing this forever. I was getting a big award one day, and I heard my daughter on the phone saying, &amp;quot;My mommy can&amp;#039;t drive. My mommy burns the meat loaf. The only thing my mommy can do is television.&amp;quot; Then I said, &amp;quot;But look around, darling. We didn&amp;#039;t do too badly.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a2032/esq0102-jan-walters/>