This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.

The worst kind of censorship is the kind that takes place in your own mind before you sit down to a typewriter.

Don't think of it as art, think of it as work.

Stop thinking about writing as art. Think of it as work. If you’re an artist, whatever you do is going to be art. If you’re not an artist, at least you can do a good day’s work.

The best thing that can happen is for the theme to be nice and clear from the beginning.

You're not such a dog as you think you are.

Television is not the truth! Television is a goddamned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a travelling troupe of acrobats and story-tellers, singers and dancers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion-tamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business!