Popular quotes about Television! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 8
I've really dreamed of doing television. All of us do television, coming up. But when I was coming up, television was a black hole for actors. Now, television has a certain cache. Now everybody wants to be on TV because they're doing adult dramas. If you're an actor, it's like, "Well, get me on television," because it's the only place you can do it and also make a living at it. If my kids need shoes, I better do a TV show because I damn sure don't make any money with independent films.
Billy Bob ThorntonI wouldn't be interested in [nowadays] television simply because I think it goes too fast. Except if something was maybe a play on television or some great television script.
Al PacinoTelevision is the same as the telephone, and the same as the World Wide Web for that matter. People who become obsessed by the peculiarities of these communications media have simply failed to adjust to the shock of the old. People who bleat on about the 'artistic' potential of television qua television are equally deluded.
Will SelfWhen I first started making films 30 years ago, people would comment that I was a woman. But strangely, when I was in television, no one ever mentioned that I was a woman. Maybe it was because television and film were different. There were more women working in television than men. There was no split in terms of work - everyone was considered equal
Ann HuiSomewhere around the turn of the century, it stopped being hip to say you never watched TV. Adults are much more likely to find something to engage them on television than they are at the local multiplex. Edges are being cut on television all the time, but at the movies only now and then.
Tom ShalesWhen I first started acting, I had all these ideals about the kinds of roles I wanted to play, but the reality is that when you do television - and I do a lot of television - you get cast for qualities that you have as a person. So I look for qualities that I like to portray.
Erin GrayI'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.
Scott BakulaIn Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury raised cautions against mass media, especially the television, which dumb down human sensibilities and coerce everybody's thoughts into a single uniform value, allowing human to forget the fundamental action of "having one's opinion". As a result, the society deteriorates. I decided to exhibit [Edward] Kienholz's work which features television as its subject, as well as the Big Double Cross as works that represent this warning.
Yasumasa MorimuraThey dislike me, the liberal media dislikes me. I was always the best at what I did, I went to the Wharton School of Finance, did well. I went out, I started in Brooklyn office with my father, I became one of the most successful real estate developers, one of the most successful business people. I created maybe the greatest brand. I then go into, in addition to that, part time, like five percent a week, I open up a television show. The Apprentice on many evenings was the number one show on all of television, a tremendous success.
Donald TrumpThere's a level of action unlike anything else on television. AMC always makes distinctive television and I think that certainly fits that requirement.
Miles MillarBlack 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.
Michael Eric DysonThere's this message to comedians in particular, that you shouldn't write it, and a television writer should write it. And that's a prevailing conventional wisdom that I think is really wrong. That's not to say that television writers aren't great, but I think that the belief that some comedy writer's going to be able to capture your voice is naive.
Jim GaffiganThe worst thing about television is that everybody you see on television is doing something better than what you're doing. You never see anybody on TV just sliding off the front of the sofa, with potato chip crumbs all over their shirt.
Jerry SeinfeldDaytime television, you can tell whoโs watching by the three kinds of commercials. Either itโs clinics for drying out drunks. Or itโs law firms who want to settle injury suits. Or itโs schools offering mail-order vocational degrees to make you a bookkeeper. A private detective. Or a locksmith. If youโre watching daytime television, this is your new demographic. Youโre a drunk. Or a cripple. Or an idiot.
Chuck PalahniukI think that people might watch reality television or what they see played out on media outlets and get ideas. We might be more anesthetized to divorce or bad behavior now because of what we see on television or on postings on TMZ. So it definitely could be filtering in to how we conduct ourselves.
Laura WasserWhen you're on the bus or subway or in your car, why busy your mind with all the garbage of advertisements? Why fill your mind with television and radio? Somehow you have to decide what your mind will receive. I don't mean you shouldn't ever go to movies or watch television, but control what enters your mind and heart. It's not just a question of pushing bad things out but also a question of holding on to something really good.
Henri NouwenIn my early thirties I was working in television as a researcher. I was really stuck for a period of five years. I got to TV when I was thirty. I hated being a music writer, and kept wondering why I couldn't be doing the exciting things that my friends were doing in television.
Mary HarronI think if you work in television everyday, and you must be privy to everything happening in television, then do so.
Diahann CarrollI hate going to L.A. and dealing with the contempt people have for television and television actors. Its unbelievable the kind of attitude people take toward what is the most exciting medium weve got right now.
Michael MoriartyWhen I sit down, I find that it's much easier for me to want to consume a movie than to dip back into 20 or 40 or 60 hours of a television series. I think a great movie is really amazing. But, television does give you a larger canvas.
Frank SpotnitzIn Halberstram's fun house, television elected John F. Kennedy in 1960 (presumably Richard J. Daley and his precinct captains were at home on election night watching the Cook County ballots being counted on television).
Edwin DiamondMost Chinese filmmakers grew up watching television; they watched films on television, not in cinemas. The scope of their vision is not big enough, they're not yet detail-oriented enough. You have to watch films in cinemas for years to understand the depth and scope of vision needed in filmmaking. Directors in China usually come from an academic background; they graduate as film directors. Whereas the directors from Hong Kong learn their trade on sets, beginning at the lowest rung.
Gordon ChanTelevision exposes the world to the accident. The world is exposed to accidents through television.
Paul VirilioAt network television you could make a show like Freaks and Geeks, and even though 7 million people watch is every week, you were considered a terrible failure, and they got rid of you and staff. Now ... It's like a world where the replacements are the biggest fans in the world. It's, the Elvis Costellos of television are the winners. Creativity is king and it's very very exciting.
Judd ApatowAs the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.
Gore VidalIf your working television sits on top of your non-working television, you might be a redneck.
Jeff FoxworthyLocal television news, on both radio and television, is so appalling. Makes print journalism look like the greatest stuff ever written.
Robert Waterman McChesneyThe Bush campaign for re-election has officially begun. They're actually running television commercials. Have you seen any of the television commercials? In one of the commercials, you see George Bush for thirty seconds. In another commercial, you get to see George Bush for sixty seconds - kind of like his stint in the National Guard.
David LettermanOnce in a while a good opportunity would come along, like the first 'Playhouse 90 ever to air - working in television afforded me my best opportunities. The (film) industry was going through such turmoil at the time - studios didn't know where to go anymore, they were falling apart, television was there. They didn't know what kind of films people wanted. The European films were making a huge impact because those films wanted real people in real situations.
Tab HunterTelevision and radio are what I call sequential media; they're not simultaneous media. With simultaneous media, you can scan your eye down an electronic or print page and pick among six or seven stories you might like and want to read. With television and radio, you have to wait until the guy's finished talking about the balloon boy, which I don't have the slightest interest in, to find out that all hell's broken loose in Baghdad. Because they've chosen that day to start with the balloon boy.
Harold EvansI love making movies, I love the differentness of it, I love writing. But I've always liked television. I grew up on television.
William H. MacyJust because you can watch half-nude women on afternoon television or gay men kissing on the streets of nearly any major city does not mean America is free, as complacent liberals might think, much less too free, as conservatives often suggest. Just because most dissidents are left alone doesn't mean there is no police state, for that would be convenient indeed for the police statists: the idea that people ought not complain so long as they have the right to do so.
Anthony GregoryOnly at the Golden Globes do the beautiful people of film rub shoulders with the rat-faced people in television.
Amy PoehlerMy dad is a successful television producer, director and writer and my mom's a director and writer.
Troian BellisarioI'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.
Robert GreenblattBilly was fascinated by the television. At its most basic level, it occupied his time and shut out the demons of isolation. This was another irony because, for so long, he had shunned the tube for a similar purpose-to prevent it from bombarding his brain with demons of banality. However, each time he turned the machine on, he began to discover a world of assorted delights, as well as gain insight into the insidious manner in which this medium was shaping the mass psyche. If nothing else, he learned there was nothing innocuous about it.
Jim CarrollI got into television because I hated it so. And I thought there's some way of using this fabulous instrument to nurture those who would watch and listen.
Fred RogersI think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?
Federico FelliniI just like short hair on women, I think it's cool. And I have wanted to cut my hair for very many years, but being on contract with a television show for six years prevents you from doing that, and then being on contract with a cosmetic endorsement campaign prevents you from doing that again. So for eight years, I've had to have long, flowing locks. And I was just so sick and tired of long, flowing locks, so I chopped them.
Evangeline LillyI think it's very rare that you see girl friendships on television. It's always cattiness and all that drama.
Lyndsy FonsecaI don't think any industry was ever as closely scrutinized and written about and constantly in the public eye as television.
Roone ArledgeFilms 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.
Indraneel BhattacharyaI don't know, unless you disagree with me, wouldn't it be better, if we were going to go after Mosul, to not say anything and do it as opposed to announcing? They're announcing all over television they're planning to attack Mosul.
Donald TrumpAs actors, it is our responsibility to read the newspapers, and then say what we read on television like it's our own opinion.
Janeane GarofaloBe very careful of what you allow to infiltrate your consciousness and subconsciousness. When you watch too much television, you'll start to feel inferior from all the commercials hard selling the idea that you're not complete unless you buy their product. The ad agencies appeal to your fear of not being wanted or loved. It's the same with the local news. They get you to stay tuned with a constant stream of fear tactics. It's as if our culture is addicted to fear and the flat screen is our drug dealer. Don't allow that crap into your head!
RuPaul