As H.L. Mencken once said, 'nobody ever when broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.' Our show [All in the Family] countered that witticism. I think he was wrong.

If there is a reason to believe in God, it would be the Havana Leaf.

When we went on the air, I didn't want to be interrupted for an act-one curtain.

Archie Bunker used to call me 'the laziest white kid he'd ever met.'

But you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that's not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met.

That's the heart of it: My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.

That's a very hard thing to help the establishment know. We're still an establishment that thinks the average mentality is something like 13 years of age, that never forgot H.L. Mencken's notion that nobody lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people. That's the horseshit the establishment has always lived with.