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!

I'm afraid to look in the mirror. I'm afraid I'm going to see an old lady with white hair, just like the old ladies in the park. Alittle bundle in a black shawl just waiting for the coffin.

Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers, it's stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.

We've established the most enormous medical entity ever conceived... and people are sicker than ever. We cure nothing! We heal nothing!

Howard Beale is processed, instant God, and right now it looks like he might just go over bigger than Mary Tyler Moore.

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

I'm a human being, god-dammit. My life has value!