A Quote by John Irving

It's magical thinking to imagine that the reason unspeakable things are being perpetrated by younger and younger people is that they've fallen under the influence of seductive, lascivious, prurient, and violent material in books, films, television. A great deal of this type of censorship has to do with absolving parents of responsibility - parents who just plop their kids in front of the television and leave them there hour upon hour.

John Irving

Quote Topics

Being Books Censorship Deal Fallen Films Front Great Great Deal Hour Imagine Imagine That Influence Just Kids Leave Magical Magical Thinking Material Parents People Reason Responsibility Seductive Television Them Things Thinking Type Unspeakable Violent Younger Younger People

Quote Author

John Irving
American - Novelist
Born: March 2, 1942

It seems to me that a great deal of this type of censorship has to do with absolving parents of responsibility - parents who just plop their kids in front of the television and leave them there hour upon hour.

John Irving

Every hour that goes by with family separation policies in effect is another hour that mothers weep thinking of their children, another hour that kids are fearfully wondering where their parents have been taken, another hour that trauma deepens.

Pramila Jayapal

One of the great things about the old days of television, 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, was that it was water cooler television. People would communally watch the same hour. People used to tell us all the time, we turn off the phones, we put the kids to bed and that one hour is uninterrupted. Then, the next day at the water cooler, they all talk about it.

Richard Schiff

One of my earliest recollections is being woken up at some ungodly hour in the morning by my parents and sat in front of the fairly new black and white television, watching a grainy image of a man in a white suit climbing down a ladder. It was the first moon landing, and I became a sort of spaceman, as many kids were.

Charles Stross

I think the challenge in hour television or half-hour television is that the more it's around, certainly on commercial television, the less time you have to tell stories these days, because the more commercials they're putting in.

Scott Bakula

My dream when I was younger was that my parents could watch me on television.

Samuel Eto'o

As you get older, all the things your parents said to you when you were younger ring true, but when you're younger, you reject them.

Julianna Margulies

I can't come on like a parent to these kids, if I do, I won't be able to have fun working with them. The good news is they all have parents. The younger ones, their parents by law have to be on set.

Stephen Collins

I guess it's because I do have a younger audience that, you know, parents worry about the role model thing. But when I was younger, I looked up to people, but I never wanted to be them. I always had my own identity. I'm an entertainer when I'm on stage, and they need to explain that to their kids. That's not my job to do that.

Britney Spears

We just have to go at 100 miles an hour in all our businesses, be they television broadcasting, be they magazine publishing, be they subscription television, be they online, be they gaming. We just have to go at one hundred miles an hour.

James Packer

I think skateboarding is better now in terms of the amount of facilities and the amount of support young skaters have - including encouragement from their parents. There was definitely an element to it when I was younger that was exclusive and kind of rebellious because most parents didn't want their kids skating. They thought it was a bad influence.

Tony Hawk

What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight, the hour of love, the hour of adoration, the hour of rest, when we think of those we love only to regret that we have not loved them more dearly, when we remember our enemies only to forgive them.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Cultural expectations shade and color the images that parents-to-be form. The baby product ads, showing a woman serenely holding her child, looking blissfully and mysteriously contented, or the television parents, wisely and humorously solving problems, influence parents-to-be.

Ellen Galinsky

Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading books to babies in the womb.

Alison Gopnik

Even if every program were educational and every advertisement bore the seal of approval of the American Dental Association, we would still have a critical problem. It's not just the programs but the act of watching television hour after hour after hour that's destructive.