Top 87 Quotes & Sayings by Norman Lear - Page 2

Ed Simmons and I became stars in the emerging medium of television. We were new and fresh, just like TV at the time, so we automatically became 'THE' comedy writers for television.

I was writing for live television. And I said to myself, someday, soon as I can, I have got to do a situation comedy.

America is a country of excess.

When I got married for the third time, and I had children from my other marriage there, that's what I said when it came time in the ceremony for me to say something. I said, "I'm grateful to everybody that participated, everybody that participated in my life that got me to this moment. And everything was dead-right because everything is right now."

In my 90-plus years, I have lived a multitude of lives.

The trafficking of sex and violence is comes after the demand for ratings.

I wanted to meet Bob Hope, and I got to know him pretty well.

When I countered that Archie Bunker didn't have to put down a race of people to say that, he replied, 'and you're the dumbest white kid I've ever met.'

I think if you're feeling great about where you are, everything that led up to it had to be terrific.

What happens at the average church or synagogue or mosque is that I don't know many priests or ministers or rabbis who say to their congregation, 'go home and talk about the religion at the kitchen table with your kids...talk about God, talk about what this is all about.' They say in general, come back on the weekend, we'll talk to you about it.

Bud [Yorkin] was the kindest and dearest man, and one of the most talented directors there was.

As a matter of fact, when people ask where my 'point of view' comes from, it was there in one of the first sketches we wrote for [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis.

The movies had a slogan at the time, to distinguish themselves from TV, that said 'movies are better than ever.'

... For all our alarm, it is clear that the religious right is responding to a real hunger in our society... a deep-seated yearning for stable values... When conservative Christian groups talk of failures in our educational system, the erosion of our moral standards, and the waste of young lives, they are addressing real and legitimate concerns... Among secularists, the aversion toward discussion of moral values, let alone religion, can reach absurd extremes.

The establishment uses that rationale all the time, and that's why we do what we do. But leadership requires some understanding that you can say no. People have base instincts, but the transcendent also appeal to them.

Ratings translate into corporations, corporations that need a profit statement this quarter that's larger than the last.

Bud [Yorkin] broke out big when he did 'The Fred Astaire Show' and won four Emmys. His wife at the time suggested that we team up. We got a lot of press in show business papers, and a number of offers...we eventually signed with Paramount Pictures. But I always like to say, his was the horse that we rode in on. That is my favorite recollection.

The complete control of one party over everything - I would, I think, feel the same way if it were [the Democrats in charge]. It's not the American way.

We mocked that concept ['movies are better than ever'] by doing a sketch that was about a theater trying to get one customer to come in...and that customer was Jerry Lewis. It generated so much controversy that Dean [Martin] and Jerry [Lewis] had to apologize in a full page ad in Variety.

I wanted to work with Bert Lahr [the 'Cowardly Lion' in 'The Wizard of Oz'], and I did.

I guess the story that best defines us [with Bud Yorkin] and our relationship goes back to the [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis show. The four stage managers on that show became major TV creators and directors - John Rich, Jack Smight, Arthur Penn and Bud Yorkin.

I don't know how you can look back with regret if you're at a moment when everything seems fine.

I think somehow I got a sense of the foolishness of the human - my favorite phrase, the foolishness of the human condition.

I was the laziest white kid my dad ever met.

I got a call from an agent to come to New York City, and write for the 'Ford Star Revue.' Because at the time there wasn't much 'national television'.

Next up [new TV stars] was [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis on 'The Colgate Comedy Hour.'

I looked at enough of American Idol in the first weeks, and they're all about humiliation. I listen to Rush Limbaugh because I find it so repulsive. There are people with a little less sophistication who watch a lot of it, because we allow things to appeal to our baser instincts. But at the same moment, give me a little choice, and I'll make a better decision, because I have that ability too. And so does everybody else.