Andy Rooney Quotes

No matter what any of the grammar teachers say, punctuation is an arbitrary matter. It should be used to make sentences clear.

Small daily happenings make life spectacular.... start enjoying the small things in life!

Once you pass forty, a dime isn't worth bending over to pick up if you drop one.

My advice is not to wait to be struck by an idea. If you're a writer, you sit down and damn well decide to have an idea. That's the way to get an idea.

Would a real man get caught eating a twinkie?

I've learned .... That when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

I spent my first 50 years trying to become known as a writer and the next 30 trying to avoid being famous. I walk down the street or go to a football game and people shout, 'Hey Andy'. I hate that.

All men are not created equal but should be treated as though they were under the law.

The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

You can't be a good writer without being a good thinker.

Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated.

My mother always called me 'sturdy' and said I have big bones. A little fat is what I am.

Anyone should be very suspicious of a sentence he's written that can't be read aloud easily.

Great teachers are usually a little crazy.

New ideas are one of the most overrated concepts of our time. Most of the important ideas that we live with aren't new at all.

Why am I an atheist? I ask you: Why is anybody not an atheist? Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated. I resent anyone pushing their religion on me. I don't push my atheism on anybody else. Live and let live. Not many people practice that when it comes to religion.

If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it.

People like to say, "You're only as old as you feel," but it isn't true. It's just something old people say to make themselves feel good about their age. You're as old as you are.

The best thing about a vacation is planning it.

I don't like food that's too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a painting.

People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.

In Washington, a confidential assistant is someone who, if you don't want to know something, you go and ask him and he won't tell you.

A writer's job is to tell the truth.

I am an atheist... I don't understand religion at all. I'm sure I'll offend a lot of people by saying this, but I think it's all nonsense.

No one likes the house next door to look worse or a lot better than his own.

Looking and not finding is certainly one of the most frustrating ways to spend time.

By the time they're ready to be thrown away, most shoes are thoroughly comfortable

In the futile attempts we all make to tidy up our lives and our surroundings, nothing is more difficult than throwing out a book.

I've learned... that everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.

Don't you hate it when...your suitcase is the last one off the airplane?

Sooner or later the world will have to return to the good old days when we fought wars and killed people the old-fashioned way, one at a time.

Did you ever notice that people who are good with a computer don't use it for much of anything except being good with a computer? They know all about information technology, but they don't have much interest in the information. I'm the opposite.

The great virtue of being alone is that your mind can go its own way.

I often pass a farm with cows grazing in the field and I think to myself how terrible it is that human beings grow other animals just to kill them and eat them. Most of us think of vegetarians as nuts and I'm not a vegetarian but I wouldn't be surprised if we came to a time in 50 or 100 years when civilized people everywhere refused to eat animals.

Phyllis Schlafly speaks for all American women who oppose equal rights for themselves.

One of the things we can be sure of over the July 4th weekend is that news reports will keep telling us how many of us are going to die in automobile accidents.

I've learned that no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.

If you get murdered because you go on a date with someone you met on the Internet, you probably deserved it.

It's not so much that I write well, I just don't write badly very often and that passes for good on television.

I've learned... That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.

Ugly is very popular this year...I had a feeling these clothes were deigned by someone who didn't like women.

Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.

Writers don't retire. I will always be a writer.

Numbers tend to give the impression that there's more order in the world than there is.

Those to whom his word was revealed were always alone in some remote place, like Moses. There wasn't anyone else around when Mohammed got the word either. Mormon Joseph Smith and Christian Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy, had exclusive audiences with God. We have to trust them as reporters--and you know how reporters are. They'll do anything for a story.

I'd like to be rich enough so I could throw soap away after the letters are worn off

A woman over 30 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, "What are you thinking?". She doesn't care what you think.

I've learned... That the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.