I think about a year after college I realized I don't want to waste any more time worrying about this and wishing I was some other way, i think being gay is one of the blessings of my life. And it made me a better person, it made me a better reporter.

Anderson Cooper

I have always been very open and honest about this part of my life with my friends, my family, and my colleagues. In a perfect world, I don't think it's anyone else's business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted. I’m not an activist, but I am a human being and I don't give that up by being a journalist.

Anderson Cooper

perfect giving thinking

Did you know that according to legend, the guy who became Buddha decided to seek enlightenment the day he got a touch of gray? "Gray hairs," the would-be Buddha said, "are like angels sent by the god of death".

Anderson Cooper

guy angel hair

That's the thing about suicide. Try as you might to remember how a person lived his life, you always end up thinking about how he ended it.

Anderson Cooper

suicide trying thinking

Do you get the anger that is out here?

Anderson Cooper

hurricane-katrina katrina

Anyone who says they're not afraid at the time of a hurricane is either a fool or a liar, or a little bit of both.

Anderson Cooper

liars littles lying

As long as a journalist shows fairness and honesty in his or her work, their private life shouldn't matter.

Anderson Cooper

honesty matter long

Each child’s story is worthy of telling. There shouldn’t be a sliding scale of death. The weight of it is crushing.

Anderson Cooper

crush stories children

We know the president of the United States has no facts. No facts to back up his startling allegation that the former president of the United States, President Obama, wiretapped him in Trump Tower during the campaign.

Anderson Cooper

president-obama president

Thoughts come and go. It's impossible to stop your thoughts, but the idea is that the thoughts are kind of like waves on the ocean. That's Jon Kabat-Zinn's big analogy and that this is actually kind of diving under the waves. And you know it's kind of interesting.

Anderson Cooper

ocean ideas interesting

Socialism isn't just a list of economic prescriptions for government. Perhaps above all, socialism is a moral view.

Anderson Cooper

lists government views

I was surprised how much Andy Cohen reveal about his insecurities and your personal life.

Anderson Cooper

personal-life insecurity

I think you have to be yourself, and you have to be real and you have to admit what you don't know, and talk about what you do know, and talk about what you don't know as long as you say you don't know it.

Anderson Cooper

being-yourself real thinking

A lot of compelling stories in the world aren't being told, and the fact that people don't know about them compounds the suffering.

Anderson Cooper

suffering stories people

[Bill Clinton] has settled numerous lawsuits without admitting any guilt on a whole number of things. Are you saying, are you implying that settling a lawsuit is implying guilt? Because if so, it means that your candidate is guilty of an awful lot of things, no.

Anderson Cooper

guilt numbers mean

Our skin is very thin. It doesn't take much for us to jump off a ledge or to kill one another. It can happen very, very quickly.

Anderson Cooper

ledges skins happens

Going gray is like ejaculating: you know it can happen prematurely, but when it does it comes as a total shock.

Anderson Cooper

gray shock doe

Just to be clear, if, like Pat Robertson, you somehow missed all the evidence, all the research, the depth and breadth of all the knowledge garnered about HIV and AIDS over the past three decades, you cannot get HIV if you share towels.

Anderson Cooper

hiv depth past

Everyone says buying your first apartment makes you feel like an adult. What no one mentions is that selling it turns you right back into a child.

Anderson Cooper

emotional buying children

The farther you go...the harder it is to return. The world has many edges and it's easy to fall off.

Anderson Cooper

world travel fall

My goodness, why is this woman [ Hillary Clinton ] at 46%? She's like the magic 46. She's 46% in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, she's 46% in a lot of these swing states.

Anderson Cooper

nbc swings wall