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.

We just may be the most well-informed, yet least self-aware, people in history.

Culturally, I think 'All in the Family' was universal enough to have good timing at any time.

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.

We had a Judeo-Christian ethic hanging around a couple thousand years that didn't help erase racism at all. So the notion of the little half-hour comedy changing things is something I think is silly.

When something is over, it is over.

My dad called me meat head dead from the neck up.