Carlson: "I am really only interested in new information, not freelance opinion. I don't really care what you think off the top of your head."

Carlson: "There's almost nothing that upsets Americans more than the idea that somewhere, somehow, somebody is getting his feelings hurt."

Carlson: "If you think that the policy that you're proposing will, you know, reach a certain conclusion, produce a certain result, and it doesn't, I think you should acknowledge that and I think you should change your views based on the evidence."

Carlson: "I increasingly distrust complexity in worldview."

Carlson: "I have always tried to be, much more than right, I've tried to be evidence-based. I don't, especially as I age, I believe less in theories or constructs and I believe more in results, and I also believe in honesty."

Carlson: "Studies have shown people listen to TV than watch it."

Carlson: "There's no law of nature that says America must remain the most powerful country in the world."

Carlson: "It is nice to be around people who think differently than you. They challenge your ideas and keep you from being complacent."

Carlson: "Although virtually all Republicans campaign on fiscal restraint, how many actually care about it deeply?"

Carlson: "There's nothing scarier than a reckless prosecutor."

Carlson: "In Washington, no one believes anything unless it comes from 'The New Yorker,' 'New York Times' editorial page, or 'The Washington Post.'"

Carlson: "I have never been one to look beyond today."

Carlson: "America has changed so dramatically in the 49 years that i've been here that, like, why wouldn't my politics change? They've changed completely on all kinds of different issues."

Carlson: "Almost nobody gets rich or erudite overnight."

Carlson: "You don't criticize your employer."

Carlson: "People like entitlements. That's why we spend so much on them."

Carlson: "I don't care what anybody thinks."

Carlson: "There are legitimate, even powerful arguments, to be made against the Bush administration's foreign policy. But those arguments are complicated, hard to explain, and, in the end, not all that sensational."

Carlson: "In politics, reform never comes before crisis."

Carlson: "There will always be some who, for whatever reason, find themselves dependent on the charity of others. But when half the population is along for the ride, the system becomes dangerously out of balance. Things fall apart."

Carlson: "Speaking fluent English - like doing long division or successfully rewiring a 220-volt electrical outlet - is not a skill you're born with. It's something you learn, occasionally even by opening some old dictionary."

Carlson: "I only want to debate people who are more powerful than I am."

Carlson: "You can't fix a problem if you don't have the words to describe it. You can't even think about it clearly."

Carlson: "The unhappy truth is, learning is hard."

Carlson: "Unless you know a lot more about something than I do, I am not really that interested. I have too much information already."

Carlson: "Intelligence is not a moral category."

Carlson: "Living in Washington, you can't take politics too seriously. I draw the line at honesty. I have no time for political hacks who say things they don't believe because they get paid to."

Carlson: "American presidential elections usually amount to a series of overcorrections: Clinton begat Bush, who produced Obama, whose lax border policies fueled the rise of Trump."

Carlson: "The two things I was positive about in life were that I was going to be a teacher at a boarding school or an operative with the CIA posted abroad. I could write a book about all the things I was sure about."

Carlson: "In addition to all the good things it's done, the Internet has empowered an awful lot of people who would have been best off disempowered, including quite a few bloggers on both sides."

Carlson: "It is increasingly important to be open-minded."

Carlson: "In the absence of evidence, superstition. It's a Middle Ages thing. That's my theory anyway."

Carlson: "People say you become more cynical as you get older. That hasn't been my experience."

Carlson: "I have no way of knowing how people really feel, but the vast majority of those I meet couldn't be nicer. Every once in a while someone barks at me. My New Year's resolution is not to bark back."

Carlson: "You can look different but have the same values. That's not diversity; it's conformity."

Carlson: "As a print journalist, you can be frustrated by people who don't call you back, parts of the story you can't get. TV gets you access to everyone because people call you back. It also allows you to satisfy your curiosity. I am a very curious person."

Carlson: "I do think - I'm sure I'm the lone voice in saying this - that Iran deserves to be annihilated. I think they're lunatics. I think they're evil."

Carlson: "The second you think that all your good fortune is a product of your virtue, you become highly judgmental, lacking empathy, totally without self-awareness, arrogant, stupid - I mean, all the stuff that our ruling class is."

Carlson: "I try to tell the truth."

Carlson: "Maybe I'm flattering myself, but I think my view of humanity has got steadily sunnier since I was 15. I have a higher opinion of politicians, for instance, than I did when I first moved to Washington."

Carlson: "Some white people are privileged, some aren't. Some black people are, some aren't. It's strikes me as, by definition, a racist attack in that it's making a generalization - a negative one - based on skin color."

Carlson: "Children born with Down Syndrome are not vegetables, nor are their lives demonstrably not worth living."

Carlson: "To be a feminist, you could cut your hair really short. You have to be really angry about something."

Carlson: "Trump is, in part, a reaction to the intellectual corruption of the Republican Party. That ought to be obvious to his critics, yet somehow it isn't."

Carlson: "I'm not much of an economic conservative, and I'm not conservative at all on foreign policy."

Carlson: "To politicize a man's tragic death is about as low as you can go, isn't it?"

Carlson: "As a rule, the civil-rights establishment is not punctual."

Carlson: "One area of liberal phenomenon I support is female bi-sexuality."

Carlson: "Journalists typically don't carry weapons, even in war zones, for fear of compromising their status as neutral observers. If you're armed, the theory goes, other armed people will consider you a target."