Quotes About Television

I've got a lot to say about television. There's a lot going on in television right now and I feel like a huge part of television.

There used to be a huge snobbism between the film industry and the television industry. I produced and acted in my first - well way back - but the first thing that I produced and acted in was Sarah, Plan and Tall. And the only place to go at the time for really quality television was Hallmark Hall of Fame. And think how much television has changed since then.

Everyone always says to me, 'Why aren't there more people of color on television?' I'm like, 'Why don't you ask a bunch of people who aren't putting people of color on television why there aren't more people of color on television?'

I grew up with television. I love television and to be working in it is awesome. I think where I do well at television is because I grew up watching the great sitcom actors Jackie Gleason, I love Rob Reiner, also John Ritter.

One thing that is very different technically is that you don't get a lot of coverage in television. Not like you do on a film. I know we don't have time for separate set-ups, so I will design a scene where I'm hiding multiple cameras within that set-up. That way, if I don't have time to do five set-ups, I can do four cameras in one set-up. It's a different kind of approach for that. For the most part, a lot of television, in a visual sense, lacks time for the atmosphere and putting you in a place.

I have now become so infatuated with television. I think television has become elegant.

I've done great theatre, great films and had a lot of opportunities in television. I also love to sing, and I've been able to do that once or twice in the television shows.

Television is not the truth. Television is a goddamned amusement park.

I certainly don't feel there's a distinction to be made between a television and a film actor. I think there's a distinction between great actors and not so great actors. But I really think if you watch a person working in television give a wonderful performance, that person is f - ing great, because there is no time.

I do not mean to imply that television news deliberately aims to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world. I mean to say that when news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result. And in saying that the television news show entertains but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed.

Black people watch more television than anybody else, which makes it legitimate to talk about television. Its anesthetizing effect has been quite real. But that concern isn't new.

If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain, do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set?

I'm a huge fan of good, procedural-type shows on television... there are a lot of roles for women. But there aren't a lot of great network television roles for girls that will let you start a character in one place and finish up with her in a totally different one.

Rather than lose the public because television is here, wouldn't it be smart to adopt television as our instrument?

As far as the difference for me between television and movies, I really thrill to the pace of television. As exhausting as it can be - there was actually one day when we never went to bed.

Michael Bay and his team are experts in exciting tentpole-type film and television, and the combination of their film experience plus the great television writers that have come on will be really successful in bringing us something really unique. We are looking to put on these big canvas shows, and Black Sails is going to fit into that. The scripts have been terrific. Everything that we are trying to do is incredibly ambitious, and this is certainly in that category.

You always have to give back to the fans. I remember being a fan of television and film when I was growing up and if I would've had the opportunity to meet somebody that I watched on television, it would've made my day, it would've made my life.

I had a bumper sticker on my car for a long time that said, "Kill your television." People helpfully pointed out that I was a total fraud because I was a television writer.

It takes a pretty strong person, a rather unusual young person, to stand up to ridicule and refuse to give in to temptation. There are so many things today in modern music, on television, and in the movies that portray a life that is nowhere near the life the Lord would have us live. Consequently, we cannot afford to turn to the radio, television, or Hollywood to take our cues about what is right and what is wrong. It is scary to realize that the more we are exposed to Hollywood's version of life, the more we gradually begin to accept it.

I find with television, you have to play personality, whereas onstage, everyone talks about "the character," and what you do. It's a very different thing, because stage is much bigger, but on television, for things to come across to the public, I think you have to play a bit of your personality.

Television watching should more properly be called television staring; it engages eye and ear simultaneously in a relentless and persistent way and leaves no room for daydreaming. This is what makes watching such an inferior form of leisure

I think what people watch television for is the emotional continuity, from episode to episode, and feeling that the experience that they had, four episodes ago, has actually been building to an episode that comes later, and knowing that the characters are growing, as a result of that, and making mistakes, is really, really important to the way people connect to television.

There's so little difference between television and features as far as you make the film. I mean, you have less money and it's a little quicker, but the concept is all on television.

The closest I came to doing anything that I wanted to do was to try and check and see what industries were just starting out. There was plastics and television, and I figured television had to be more fun than plastics.

The thing is, that great actors are everywhere. They're everywhere. They're doing good parts on television. They're doing television commercials. They're doing local theater. There are so few opportunities.

There were no competitions on television. The first skating competition I ever remember seeing on television was the 1968 Olympics when Peggy Fleming won.

Nowadays, to be frank, every week is a good week for freakshow television. we might start asking, Why are there so many freaks? And why do they all want to be on television?

Ed Simmons and I became stars in the emerging medium of television. We were new and fresh, just like TV at the time, so we automatically became 'THE' comedy writers for television.

I don't believe terror and horror are just vicarious pleasures. I think it routes itself in your mind. It can affect your mind. Look at what's going on in the America today. The violence is just awful and I think a lot of has to do with what they are showing on the movies and television.

I knew I wanted to be an actor when I was very young. I guess I was about 6 years old at the time, and I was fascinated by television. I started having waking fantasies where I was in a movie and there were crane shots of me during a scene.

Every song that has been a hit for me has been honest and truthful. I have to believe that same formula will work on this (television) show. It has to be believable and honest.

Soul Train' was developed as a radio show on television. It was the radio show that I always wanted and never had.

I'm inordinately proud of Smash, on so many levels. The complexity of producing that show, every week, is just incredible. As a television producer and as a Broadway producer, which I once was, I am in awe of what we can do on that show, every week.

When we graduated [ from Cambridge], we were grabbed right into television. I was grabbed straight into the practice of writing comedy. It was all writing and performing. You wrote something in order for you to perform it.

We read the world - television, movies, songs, books - and the people in it through the lens of our own lives.

Lives with no more sense of spiritual meaning than that provided by shopping malls, ordinary television, and stagnant workplaces are barren lives indeed. Spirituality enriches culture.

Aaron Sorkin wrote me one of the best female roles on television, I think. He's a wonderful writer for all people. If he chooses to write, hopefully he'll write something that involves more women next time, because I would love to do it.

The fact that we don't' talk about it, that we don't have a politics in which this question of war and peace can even get onto the table, so that we can open up our Orwell, our 1984, or Animal Farm, or whatever, and read the political text that's being spotted to us on the television right off of the page; the fact that we don't have a politics robust enough to actually debate whether or not we want to be a country permanently at war. That's what keeps me from sleeping at night.

I think there's a lot of really good programming on television. What I've noticed, through the years of being a professional writer, is the watering down process of story. You have to market to the masses and not offend anybody.

I don't think any industry was ever as closely scrutinized and written about and constantly in the public eye as television.

My favorite part about costume designing is the artistry of the job. You meet with a director and a visionary to discuss ideas. You research the characters and figure out the components of their look through your own vision. You create a color palette for a film, television or stage medium and discuss it with the director of photography who then lights your colored subjects.

Films allow you more preparation time, keeping the higher budgets in mind. Television makes you work really fast, but maintain certain standards. Then it's up to me to seek out the best of both worlds.

With television you are producing hours and hours of music and for film it is a shorter experience for both the audience and for you as a composer.

I've always been conscious of the fact that there aren't enough Irish voices on British television compared to the amount of Irish people who live there.

There are very few ethnic LGBT characters on television, so I am honored to represent them. I love supporting this cause, but it’s a big responsibility, and sometimes it’s a lot of pressure on me.

The only way I'd want to do something in television would be if it was about how I think as a comedian. I'd need to be able to be a creator. That's what I enjoy - I enjoy coming up with comedy, so it'd be very difficult for me to be sitting in a room and have somebody come in and say, "Here's your script! Learn these lines!" That's not fun. At least not for me.

All television ever did was shrink the demand for ordinary movies. The demand for extraordinary movies increased. If any one thing is wrong with the movie industry today, it is the unrelenting effort to astonish.

Under capitalism the common man enjoys amenities which in ages gone by were unknown and therefore inaccessible even to the richest people. But, of course, these motorcars, television sets and refrigerators do not make a man happy. In the instant in which he acquires them, he may feel happier than he did before. But as soon as some of his wishes are satisfied, new wishes spring up. Such is human nature.