Hi, I’m Charlie Rose, co-host of “CBS This Morning” & host of “Charlie Rose” on PBS. Ask me anything.

Have you had any misconceptions about a person that were immediately cleared up upon interviewing them?

Sometimes there are misconceptions about people simply because you don't really know them. The most recent was Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America. What I know about him came from what I had read. He hadn't done much media. I found him to be engaged, candid, responsive, all those things. That's really what you look for in a guest. One of the misconceptions about Ted Williams -- he had a reputation for being standoffish with the press. I went down to Spring Training and I did an interview with him in which he was smart and talked about the intricacies of hitting a baseball. What came out of that was a friendship -- I went back to Spring Training and talked to him a number of times.

Hello Charlie. Thanks for the AMA. Can you name a guest who made you laugh so much that you had a difficult time continuing the interview?

Easy. Robin Williams. He went on a riff about my heart surgery and I don't know if there's an improvisational comedian that's ever been better than Robin Williams.

Who's been your favorite guest over the years?

It's hard to say. I think mainly of fields. Among politicians, certainly Bill Clinton because he's engaged by a whole range of subject matter. When I think about athletes, probably my favorite guest of all time among baseball players was Ted Williams. Richard Serra, the great sculptor, personifies an artist for me. When I think about science, certainly Eric Kandel because of the Brain Series we did. Actors: Clooney, because of friendship, but British actors are interesting because of simply the diversity of what they bring to the table from Shakespeare to comedy to James Bond. The person I've always wanted to interview but never met was Richard Burton. I also like a lot of directors; the one I've never interviewed is Spielberg, but I like Sam Mendes. As a general rule, I like artists and writers -- people who are creative. Increasingly, I find scientists interesting because of their work.

In an age of media polarization and cable news, how have you managed to remain as objective and apolitical as possible? It's such an asset to your work but must be difficult at times.

I understand what my role is, which is not to be an advocate, not to be someone who is pushing an agenda. It is in a sense to find out a story and bring to the table as much information and preparation as I can. I've never thought of myself as an advocate; I'm simply a reporter. My role is to simply use whatever skills I have to find out what happened, why, who.

Thanks, Charlie Rose!

1. What is your favourite word?
2. What is your least favourite word?
3. What turns you on?
4. What turns you off?
5. What sound or noise do you love?
6. What sound or noise do you hate?
7. What is your favourite curse word?
8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?
9. What profession would not like to attempt?
10. If heaven exists, what you like god to say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

1. Curiosity
2. Laziness
3. Challenge
4. People who insult the humanity of others
5. The ringing of Church bells
6. Fingernails across a chalkboard, and car horns in Manhattan
7. Fuck
8. Directing films
9. Salesman
10. "Tell me why you belong here."

Hey Charlie Rose, um, member when you interviewed Tray Anistasio when Phish broke up?... That was awesome.

We have been back in touch with Trey about coming back because he's doing some interesting things now. My first instinct is that he may very well come and talk to me again. That's one of those interviews that has gotten attention beyond my imagination. He has so many fans. The same with David Foster Wallace. He has -- I'm not sure this even does justice to him -- a cult following. He came and did an interview with me that people really, really have remembered. He did so few and this one you could feel he was natural and engaged by the conversation.

Good morning, Charlie Rose. I have read that when you were a child you worked in your father's country store. What were the dreams you had growing up? Have you fulfilled them? Where did your sophistication come from?

I was born in 1942 in a small town: Henderson, North Carolina. About 15,000 people. My father fought in World War II and my mother and I lived with my grandparents; when my father came back, my responsibility was to get up every morning and open the store. The interesting thing about my dreams was that there was a train that ran from Boston to Miami that came close to our house. And I would look at that train -- it was always going north -- and think, wouldn't I love to be on that? I didn't know journalists and I didn't know actors and I didn't know architects and I didn't know scientists. I knew lawyers and doctors and businesspeople. But my whole drive was to experience, to live, to access as much as I could. To have my driving passion be curiosity. All of the passions that have served me, made me. Curiosity, drive, the pursuit of experience. Whenever I look back, I know I learned more from when I said "yes" than when I said "no."

Sorry if this is a sore subject Mr. Rose, but what's up with the black eye you had last year? When I was watching I saw it but had no idea what happened.

I had been to the museum that morning. It was a Saturday morning. I had taken with me my new MacBook Air. As I was coming back, at the intersection of 59th Street and 5th Avenue, I tripped on a curb and put my hand out to save the computer, but in the process got a black eye. Rather than making up a much more interesting story, that's the story. Apple I think offered to make a commercial but I didn't take them up on that.

What interview will you remember most? Why?

These are all the questions that I would ask. And I don't have a great answer. I'll say three or four. Gorbachev, even though it was in Russian with a translator, there was a chemistry. I later did an interview with George Shultz and Gorbachev which was interesting. The interviews I remember are those in which you're either hearing something that you haven't heard before or in a way that you haven't heard before. A small example happened last night. I was talking to David Boies on the PBS program and we talked obviously about same-sex marriage and this unlikely partnership between Ted Olson and David Boies, who'd been opposite counsels in Bush v. Gore, and now they come together for this very special case. It became a conversation with David, who's a very good friend of mine, about Bush v. Gore, and it was real -- the best interviews have people answering questions in a way that they haven't thought about before. It's a bit like acting. The best actors have always told me that the essence of acting is to be able to say the lines as if you have just thought them. So that you're expressing them for the first time. It's like you just thought this. Those kinds of interviews have been the most memorable for me. I remember there was a writer who came who was living with AIDS and died from it and he came and said to me, in an amazing way, "I just wanted to come sit at your table before I died." Those kinds of interviews you remember. You remember in Haiti as you're walking through mud and looking at a young woman who lost two children in the earthquake, had been living in a tent for two years, had two kids tucked in behind her, and was talking about how she lives from day to day. Chuck Close once told me art is about making choices, this color, this paint, this movement. If you can lock yourself into how people do what they do best, that's a memorable story. Bill Clinton talking to me about the first time they realized they were in trouble in Iowa. I think that played a role, among other factors, in sort of the coming out of Barack Obama as a serious candidate in 2008. The fact that Bill Clinton was concerned when he talked to me reflected an awareness that they knew something was up.

If you can get people where they're thinking out loud and revealing things that they might not have thought about, but they're so caught up by the engagement, that they feel a desire for themselves and for you to tell you about choices they made and experiences that shaped them, you always want to know, "What was it that made you who you are and enabled you to do what you do?"

What story that you have covered has affected you the most? Whether that be emotionally or in a different way.

I think 9/11 -- the enormity, and the immediacy, and the moment in New York when we realized what had happened and what was happening. It seems like for 30 days I did nothing else but report that story. All of us remember where we were when we heard. I was in Manhattan and immediately went to my office and figured out how we could start broadcasting. The stories that go to my bones are stories of children who are fighting battles that you know they are going to lose and yet they have a spirit that is undeniable and a will to live. Those stories where you have contact with a small human being who is fighting the good fight. What you want to do is not ask, "What do you feel?" But get inside of them so that what they feel is so evident that it speaks for itself.

If you could pick 5 fantasy dinner party guests dead or alive, who would they be?

Muhammad and Jesus. Shakespeare. Napoleon. Einstein. And five women too -- Sophia Loren, Meryl Streep, Madame Curie, Queen Elizabeth, Katharine Hepburn.

Peanut butter and jelly or Grilled cheese?

Peanut butter and jelly for sure.

Anything with peanut butter.

Charlie, who has been your toughest interview? My mother says that as far as she can remember NY Governor Mario Cuomo was the only one who really turned the tables on you.

Others have tried. He's not the only one. But Mario Cuomo is not a tough interview because he has a very good mind and a capacity to communicate and he thinks broadly about the intersection of culture and politics. I think more in type than person. People who have such an agenda that they don't want you to talk. They view you and your questions as a minor nuisance. Every question demands a 10-minute answer and if you try to interrupt to say "that's not the question," they'll say "stop interrupting." They don't want to answer your question, they want to deliver their message. The opposite end of that is people like Bob Gates, the former Secretary of Defense, who was a great guest and would never go too far in terms of national security but was very responsive to what the questions were.

Charlie, did you ever talk with your father about his experiences of World War II? Interview him, so to speak?...

It's a very interesting question. I'll answer it in two ways. First: yes. And often. My father was in the Battle of the Bulge. He talked about his frozen feet, giving a pair of socks to a young soldier next to him and 30 seconds later that soldier died because of a sniper. He talked about him and his men capturing the Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany. He did talk to me about it. The second part of the answer is that it is one of my great, great regrets in life that I did not take him -- after I became a public person and knew many people in France -- I would have loved to have the experience that I had which was to be at Normandy, to talk to shopkeepers, and to walk the shores of Omaha Beach. My dad had come ashore a week after D-Day. To have, because of the access I had, to have taken him from Omaha Beach to Paris would have been a wonderful experience. He went on to fight in Brussels and in Germany so he had a very tough time in war. But he came back. I was two when he left and four when he came back. There was no reticence as we know of so many World War II veterans, because of Tom Brokaw's book, to tell the stories. My father didn't tell stories of his heroism but rather of what it was like and of the commitment the soldiers had to each other.

Hi Charlie....what do you do in your "down-time"...if you have any??

I have increasingly less downtime than I've had at any time in my life, simply because I'm doing two shows. The day starts early -- at 4:30 -- when I get up and check online to see what's happening. I first go to the BBC, and CBSNews.com, and a range of blogs that I read in the morning. I want to know what other people are seeing and reading. And then -- and this is why I love CBS This Morning -- I have a chance in the morning to offer a first look at the day. I finish at CBS at about 9 o'clock and at some point after that, between 10:30 and 12:30, I go across town and do the program that's on PBS called CHARLIE ROSE. We tape that about 4 o'clock. In between, I'll have worked out and maybe had a quick meal with someone. Generally I'm out by 6 or 7 and, in the summer, might go out and play tennis or hit golf balls. There's not a lot of downtime. The great thing about journalism is that what is play is work, what is relaxation is work. Most of the things I do have some connection to what I'm paid to do. Just last night I did a taping about an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, a conversation about politics, and an hour with David Boies, one of the lead lawyers in the Prop 8 case before the Supreme Court. My life involves me in everything I'm interested in and gives me a chance to meet everybody.

Here's my video response: http://cbsn.ws/1033Rfw

I have watched your show for years. You are my favorite journalist. I loved seeing your handsome and well-behaved dog, Barclay, on CBS one morning. What's his story? Is he really from Scotland?

Barclay thanks you for that question. It's a great time in his life because he's just getting ready -- hopefully, hopefully -- to become a father. It is a true story. He came from Scotland. A friend of mine had another black lab from Scotland and he brought back two more: One for his daughter, and one for me. I met Barclay when he was two and he's just a remarkable dog. He's smart, athletic, he knows who he is, and he can do anything -- outrun every other dog, jump a 3-foot fence, and everything the best dogs can. So we're looking forward to seeing what happens if he gets along with this new friend.

Thanks for answering, Mr. Rose and Barclay!

Here's my video response: http://cbsn.ws/YQkdZ2

Hey Charlie! I know you're a big foodie, and I recall one show you did in which guests discussed what their last meal would be -what would yours be? Also, I'm curious if you have a single favorite NY restaurant. Thanks!

I clearly will not say that I have one single favorite because of all the people who will be disappointed. There are lots of great restaurants in New York. New York is a foodie's dream. It's not just the great tradition of Paris; today, the ethnicity of food here in this city is terrific. I love the best restaurants like Le Bernardin but I also love the Lower East Side and trying to find a small place with 10 tables and a chef with a passion for cooking. It's real, not fancy. The food is served simple and the people care about you being in their place. It never hurts to have someone whose company you enjoy and good wine. My last meal would be chicken or fish. If chicken, fried chicken. If fish, and this may surprise some people, but I have a great love for bluefish. Seafood and the sea are things that make me feel better about life.

Here's my video response: http://cbsn.ws/XnW8L2

If you would not have gone into journalism and television, what career would you have chosen? What fields intrigue you enough to perhaps considered?

I would've been intrigued by being a film director. I would've been intrigued by politics. I thought about architecture. I would not have been working for something big, I would've been trying to create something. You can do that in a large institution but it's just not what's natural for me. I'd like to big something big but I don't want to start in something big.

Hi Charlie! I'm an aspiring broadcast journalist and really admire the new, more serious approach to morning news that you, Norah, and Gayle are pursuing on CBS This Morning. Do you have any advice for me as I embark on my career? Thanks so much for doing this AMA!

Thank you. The three of us have a great time. We like each other and we view this as an opportunity not to do something alike or different from what others are doing, but to reimagine the morning. We really believe the news is interesting and the news, well told, can be as fascinating as anything anyone else does. Plus at CBS we have many resources that have not been tapped for the morning. Great storytellers and communicators who are great for live television. As to what you can do, the skills that you ought to have, regardless of what you want to do -- produce, write, edit, report -- you want to come to the subject matter and try to understand it and explain it. If you can write, that's the beginning. Second, have some base of curiosity. Third, find a place to stand. Find a place where you can do it. We live in a world where, if you're good, you can somehow find a way to show it to enough people that if you stand out they will be anxious to know more.

Hey Charlie, thank you for what you do! Have you ever attempted to have Bob Dylan on the show? I would love to see that interview.

A thousand times. I'll tell you a quick Bob Dylan story. I was out doing something with the Grateful Dead and Dylan was there performing. I was standing backstage because I was doing this piece on the Grateful Dead and Dylan walked by me and didn't say anything, but a guy that knew him walked over to me and said "you two don't know each other, do you?" And I said no. He went to where Dylan was getting on his bus and came and got me and I stood outside Dylan's bus and we talked for about 30 minutes. I've asked him before to do something on tape. Hope springs eternal. But he doesn't do much. He's one of the people I'd most like to do. Along with Jack Nicholson, Johnny Depp. I wanted to do Jasper Johns for a long time. Dylan is at the top of that list. My friend Bill Nighy says he doesn't spend a day of his life in which he doesn't listen to at least one Dylan song.

Can you talk about the supposed "peace talks" that you were involved with between Keith Olberman and Bill O'Reilly?

How did you get involved? As a journalist, do you support the idea that media outlet owners should be allowed to control what news and opinions make it on the air?

It never really happened. All that ever happened is that I was at a conference and was doing an interview and Rupert Murdoch was there and the subject came up because of some of the exchanges between Keith at MSNBC and Bill. But I never really got involved. I just asked about the exchanges. I didn't want to have a role and I didn't try to have a role. I don't think Bill or Keith would choose me to negotiate between them. They can do quite well without me.

Charlie Rose - Why haven't I seen your name on a ballot yet? Rose for America, 2016! Thanks for the AMA, I'm looking forward to your responses. If you have the time for two questions, what book should I pick up and start reading tomorrow?

I would not want to inflict that on America. I do think the question carries with it an interesting idea. I would love to see more people who are not just from the political class engaged by the imperative of service. We need to reach out to people who have real skills. The political process tends to for the most part prevent that. It ought to be possible for people who have not grown up in a political life serve the country. They can. If I had several lives, other than what I am, which I would choose first, one of those things which I would do is politics because I think it's the ultimate contest for addressing problems in a huge way and making a difference for lots of people. Science and health is another way to do that.

In terms of a book to read tomorrow, biographies jump out to me. Jon Meacham's book on Jefferson. There've been a number of books on Churchill. Obviously the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson. They suggest a lot about what a concentration and determination and a willingness to pursue a desired result so strongly that people will do what they never believed they could do.