Quotes about television (674 quotes, page 7)

“The press, television, and movies make heroes of vandals by calling them whiz kids.”

Ken Thompson (1943) American computer scientist, creator of the Unix operating system

"Reflections on Trusting Trust" http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html, 1983 Turing Award Lecture http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html,Communications of the ACM 27 (8), August 1984, pp. 761-763.
Context: The press, television, and movies make heroes of vandals by calling them whiz kids.... There is obviously a cultural gap. The act of breaking into a computer system has to have the same social stigma as breaking into a neighbor's house. It should not matter that the neighbor's door is unlocked.

“Before the days of television and mass media, the folksinger was often a traveling newspaper spreading tales through music.”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

Introduction to "(The Marines Have Landed on the Shores of) Santo Domingo," Phil Ochs in Concert (1966)
Context: Before the days of television and mass media, the folksinger was often a traveling newspaper spreading tales through music. There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions, and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.

Music , Travel

“The kid was deliberately and maliciously watching television at him.”

Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), Ch. 6
Context: Dirk was unused to making such a minuscule impact on anybody. He checked to be sure that he did have his huge leather coat and his absurd red hat on and that he was properly and dramatically silhouetted by the light of the doorway.
He felt momentarily deflated and said, "Er..." by way of self-introduction, but it didn't get the boy's attention. He didn't like this. The kid was deliberately and maliciously watching television at him.

“Every time you think television has hit its lowest ebb, a new…program comes along to make you wonder where you thought the ebb was.”

Art Buchwald (1925–2007) journalist, humorist, United States Marine

Have I Ever Lied to You? (1968).

Thinking , Time

“Children come to school having been deeply conditioned by the biases of television.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Technopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992)
Context: In the United States, we can see such collisions everywhere... but... most clearly in the schools, where two great technologies confront each other in uncompromising aspect for the control of students' minds. On the one hand, there is the world of the printed word with its emphasis on logic, sequence, history, exposition, objectivity, detachment, and discipline. On the other there is the world of television with its emphasis on imagery, narrative, presentness, simultaneity, intimacy, immediate gratification, and quick emotional response. Children come to school having been deeply conditioned by the biases of television.... children who cannot organize their thought into logical structure even in a simple paragraph, children who cannot attend to lectures or oral explanations for more than a few minutes at a time... They are failures because there is a media war going on, and they are on the wrong side — at least for the moment.

Children , School

“It is easy to become discouraged observing this, especially since this is what the press and television insist that we look at, and nothing more.
But there is also the bubbling of change under the surface of obedience: the growing revulsion against endless wars, the insistence of women all over the world that they will no longer tolerate abuse and subordination…”

Howard Zinn book A People's History of the United States

1999 edition, p. 661
A People's History of the United States (1980)
Context: There is the past and its continuing horrors: violence, war, prejudices against those who are different, outrageous monopolization of the good earth's wealth by a few, political power in the hands of liars and murderers, the building of prisons instead of schools, the poisoning of the press and the entire culture by money. It is easy to become discouraged observing this, especially since this is what the press and television insist that we look at, and nothing more.
But there is also the bubbling of change under the surface of obedience: the growing revulsion against endless wars, the insistence of women all over the world that they will no longer tolerate abuse and subordination… There is civil disobedience against the military machine, protest against police brutality directed especially at people of color.

Women , War , World , Change

“Hollywood, television and film is not my prime area of interest.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: Hollywood, television and film is not my prime area of interest. Because I would never have any control, working in those areas. It’s nice to get the money from a Hollywood project, but whatever they do with it, it would be their piece of work, and not mine.

“No one wants to admit we're addicted to music. That's just not possible. No one's addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can't bear to be without it, but no, nobody's addicted. We could turn it off anytime we wanted.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3
Context: No one wants to admit we're addicted to music. That's just not possible. No one's addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can't bear to be without it, but no, nobody's addicted. We could turn it off anytime we wanted. I fit a window frame into a brick wall. With a little brush, the size for fingernail polish, I glue it. The window is the size of a fingernail. The glue smells like hair spray. The smell tastes like oranges and gasoline

Music

“Reality, at first glance, is a simple thing: the television speaking to you now is real.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

What Is Reality?
Context: Reality, at first glance, is a simple thing: the television speaking to you now is real. Your body sunk into that chair in the approach to midnight, a clock ticking at the threshold of awareness. All the endless detail of a solid and material world surrounding you. These things exist. They can be measured with a yardstick, a voltammeter, a weighing scale. These things are real.

Reality

“This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it's nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

RTNDA Convention Speech (1958)
Context: This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it's nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.
Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

Decision , Light , Indifference , Box

“Furthermore, the younger members of our society have for some time been in growing rebellion against paternal authority and the paternal state. For one reason, the home in an industrial society is chiefly a dormitory, and the father does not work there, with the result that wife and children have no part in his vocation. He is just a character who brings in money, and after working hours he is supposed to forget about his job and have fun. Novels, magazines, television, and popular cartoons therefore portray "Dad" as an incompetent clown. And the image has some truth in it because Dad has fallen for the hoax that work is simply something you do to make money, and with money you can get anything you want.
It is no wonder that an increasing proportion of college students want no part in Dad's world, and will do anything to avoid the rat-race of the salesman, commuter, clerk, and corporate executive. Professional men, too—architects, doctors, lawyers, ministers, and professors—have offices away from home, and thus, because the demands of their families boil down more and more to money, are ever more tempted to regard even professional vocations as ways of making money. All this is further aggravated by the fact that parents no longer educate their own children. Thus the child does not grow up with understanding of or enthusiasm for his father's work. Instead, he is sent to an understaffed school run mostly by women which, under the circumstances, can do no more than hand out mass-produced education which prepares the child for everything and nothing. It has no relation whatever to his father's vocation.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 111

Women , Men , Money , Children

“We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

On the Mindless Menace of Violence (1968)
Context: Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

“I think filmmakers are wrong about this. I think sharing's a good thing. … They said television would kill the movies, it didn't. They said VCRs would kill the movies, it didn't. Now they're saying this is going to kill the movies. It won't.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

On the posting of his film SiCKO on the Internet, prior to its official release, as quoted in "Michael Moore Takes on His Pirates!" by Edward Douglas (19 June 2007) http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=21141
2007
Context: The film that's leaked onto the Internet is not taken at a movie theatre with a little home video camera, right? The way it's usually done? This is an inside job... Now, if you were a police detective, one of the first questions you'd ask is motive. Who has a vested interest in destroying the opening weekend's box office of this movie? If I were the police or the FBI investigating this felony that's taken place, that's where I would look.
Having said that, I'm glad that people were able to see my movie. … I'm not a big believer in our copyright laws. I think they're way too restrictive. … I've never supported this concept of going after Napster. I think the rock bands who fought this were wrong. I think filmmakers are wrong about this. I think sharing's a good thing. … They said television would kill the movies, it didn't. They said VCRs would kill the movies, it didn't. Now they're saying this is going to kill the movies. It won't. People want to get out of the house and go to the movies! Nothing's ever going to kill that, and I really hope people will do that on opening weekend.

Thinking

“Violence is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more thoughtful television programming.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

World , Peace

“Mohammad Khatami was elected because he promised reform, that was then, four years has gone by, and there has only been "talk" of a progressive movement. Today the situation is different, because he could not deliver his promises. And, with his position as President, he doesn't have any power, nor does he have any control over the radio or the television. Worse, Mr. Khatami was unable to take firm positions when facing the hard-line elements in the régime. To the slightest jolt, he always aligned himself with the régime.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted by Afsané Bassir, Interview with Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah of Iran http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=50&page=7, Le Monde, June 6, 2001.
Interviews, 2001-2002

“The revolution will not be televised.”

Ralph Smart

“I remember sometimes growing up I would feel ashamed of my mom or my dad if they came to pick us up at school, because they never looked like all the other mothers and fathers; they were always dirty because they had been out in the fields, drove in to pick us up at 3:00 so we could go to work…So I remember when I heard Chávez speak, when I saw him on television, I remember thinking that my mom and dad had actually contributed to the wealth of this country and I shouldn’t feel embarrassed by them or feel bad for them.”

Malaquías Montoya (1938) American artist

On how his viewpoint of his parents changed after the advent of César Chávez (as quoted in “’What better function for art at this time than as a voice for the voiceless’: The Work of Chicano Artist Malaquías Montoya” https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/17/%E2%80%9Cwhat-better-function-art-time-voice-voiceless%E2%80%9D-work-chicano-artist-malaqu%C3%ADas; 2019 Feb 15)

School , Country , Bad luck , Wealth

“Film and television essentially feel the same when you’re doing it, because it’s the same technical approach. All the homework is the same. The homework for each medium is all similar, but the gratification in a live theater context is much higher, because it’s immediate. It’s far more dangerous, because there are no retakes. It’s electric, it’s an actual chemical transaction that occurs between you and the audience. Whatever energy you’re throwing out to them they throw it right back to you, and it kind of feeds on itself in this vacuum…”

Benjamin Bratt (1963) American actor

On acting in various mediums in “Interview: Benjamin Bratt” https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Interview-Benjamin-Bratt-6673.html in Cinema Blend

Feeling

“Modern philosophy, an element due to which the surrounding reality and even the psychology of people are changing. The first ray of light in the kingdom of darkness was the Internet, after a smartphone was proved that a small device the size of a palm can completely replace the TV and computer. All people in the older generation remained alive in television manipulations, not wanting to join in the innovations. 50 years ago, smartphones and the Internet were just sketches of dreamers, as 200 years ago dreamers dreamed of flying ships, which we now call planes, but dreams became reality and now a new dreamer with a Japanese name plans to destroy the main pillar of the monopoly of world-owned corporations by creating an alternative currency .”

Maxim Mernes (1996) Russian businessman, investor, blogger

About the state and technology
Source: Экономика Цифровой Эры, LiveLib, ru, 2019-11-21 https://www.livelib.ru/author/1229982-maksim-mernes,

Light , Dreams , People , Reality

“Television has lapped theater in a lot of storytelling techniques — realism, depth of character, complicated storytelling…What we have that’s different in the theater is the audience in the space with us. And I’m not interested in ignoring the space between us.”

Kristoffer Diaz American writer

On how theater differs from television in “Playwright Kristoffer Diaz steps into the ring” https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2011-aug-21-la-ca-chad-deity-20110821-story.html in the Los Angeles Times (2011 Aug 21)

“If you’re a playwright who doesn’t want to do people-on-a-couch plays, there are not a lot of avenues…You can go and do television, or you can stay and fight with organizations that aren’t really equipped to support work by people of color or experiment with form.”

Kristoffer Diaz American writer

On experimenting as a playwright in “Playwright Kristoffer Diaz steps into the ring” https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2011-aug-21-la-ca-chad-deity-20110821-story.html in the Los Angeles Times (2011 Aug 21)

Fight , Support , People , Color

“Television is art by committee…I’m lucky to have worked on some really interesting shows, but in film, you’re there to fulfill the director’s vision. If you get to work with great directors, you become a vehicle for that work.”

Raúl Castillo (1977) American actor, writer

On television versus film work in “After ‘Looking’ and ‘We the Animals,’ Raul Castillo Is Ready to Be a Movie Star” https://www.indiewire.com/2019/01/raul-castillo-interview-we-the-animals-looking-1202029967/ in IndieWire (2019 Jan 2)

Art

“Look, there are senior executives from our television company Russia Today sitting across from me. What is happening in some countries where they operate? They are being banned. What does this mean? It means those who do so are afraid of the competition… Someone is making it hard for them. That means we are winning…. We do not have global media like CNN, Fox News, BBC and so on… We have just one fairly modest channel. Even if it causes so much heartburn and fear of it being able to influence minds, then we are winning this competition…”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Cooperation, Terrorism, UK & USA, President Trump, Resolving Conflict, Defense, Crimea, The Media, Nuclear Weapons Policy: 15th Plenary Session (18 October 2018)

Fear , Making love , Country

“Shortly before 5 am on 19 May, Zhao appeared in Tiananmen Square and wandered among the crowd of protesters. Using a bullhorn, he delivered a now-famous speech to the students gathered at the square. It was first broadcast through China Central Television nationwide. Here is a translated version.”

Zhao Ziyang (1919–2005) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

Source: Zhao Ziyang's Tiananmen Square speech, Chua, Dan-Chyi, February 2009, Asia! Magazine, 23 June 2009 http://www.theasiamag.com/cheat-sheet/zhao-ziyangs-tiananmen-square-speech,; also available in the original Chinese at Archived copy, 23 June 2009, yes, https://web.archive.org/web/20090523155929/http://www.chengmingmag.com/t285/select/285sel06.html, 23 May 2009, dmy-all http://www.chengmingmag.com/t285/select/285sel06.html, (broken link)

Appearance

“Growing up as somebody from another country, really, not what you see on television, I never saw myself in the forefront, ever. We were always in the background.”

Lucy Liu (1968) American actress and model

On the lack of Asian American representation on television in “The Evolution of Lucy Liu” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-evolution-of-lucy-liu-elementary/ in CBS News (2017 May 7)

Country

“The lack of predictability with television is something that’s constantly changing what your perception of who you think your character is…”

Lucy Liu (1968) American actress and model

On how television differs from Liu’s other acting ventures in “Lucy Liu’s Independent Woman” https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/lucy-liu-elementary in Interview Magazine (2014 Oct 30)

Thinking , Change

“The American two-party electoral system, with its ballyhoo and hoopla, its impresarios and stunt artists, is the greatest show on earth. Campaign time is show time, a veritable circus brought into our living rooms via television as a form of entertainment. The important thing is that the show must go on - because it is more than just a show. The two-party system electoral social order. It channels and limits political expression, and blunts class grievances. It often leaves little time for the real issues because it gives so much attention to the contest per se who will run? who is ahead? who will win the primaries? who will win the election? It provides the form of republican government with little of the substance. It fives the plutocratic system of appearance of popular participation while being run by and for a select handful of affluent contestants.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 11, p. 179

Appearance , Time

“America represents more than just an economic system; it is an entire cultural and social order, a plutocracy, a system of rule that is mostly by and for the rich. Most universities and colleges, publishing houses, mass circulation magazines, newspapers, television and radio stations, professional sports teams, foundations, churches, private museums, charity organizations, and hospitals are organized as corporations, ruled by boards of trustees (or directors or regents) composed overwhelmingly of affluent business people. These boards exercise final judgement over all institutional matters.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 3, p. 33

Sport , Housing , Business , People

“For many people, the shoddily thought out doctrines of borderline science are the closest approximation to comprehensible science readily available. The popularity of borderline science is a rebuke to the schools, the press and commercial television for their sparse, unimaginative and ineffective efforts at science education; and to us scientists, for doing so little to popularize our subject.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (p. 63)

School , People , Education , Science

“We all know perfectly well why the Government are standing by their policy of the independent deterrent. The reason is simply prestige, keeping up with our nuclear neighbours. Frankly, we cannot do it. The Americans spend on research alone £2,500 million a year, which is half as much again as our total defence budget, and it is rising rapidly. We can only be a nuclear Power if we can afford the means to produce twenty or more alternative weapons as an assurance against the many which are certain to fail. Out of our resources, we were able to afford only one intercontinental ballistic missile, and that was Blue Streak. The failure of Blue Streak was the moment of truth for this country so far as the independent deterrent was concerned. To cling to the policy after that was…like the action of a rather pathetic sort of man who cannot afford a television and who cannot bring himself to admit the fact, so he puts up the aerial instead.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1962/mar/06/defence#S5CV0655P0_19620306_HOC_217 in the House of Commons (6 March 1962)
Shadow Foreign Secretary

Truth , Failure , Country

“Brazil is safer and more welcoming today. We have just extended visa exemptions to countries such as the United States, Japan, Australia and Canada, and we are currently considering the adoption of similar measures for China and India, among others. With more safety and convenience, we want everyone to be able to visit Brazil, and particularly our Amazon rainforest, with all its vastness and natural beauty. The Amazon is not being destroyed nor consumed by fire, as the media is falsely portraying. Each one of you may check what I am saying. Do not hesitate to visit Brazil. It is way different than the country portrayed in many newspapers and television shows.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Speech at the at the 74th UN General Assembly. Statement by Mr. Jair Messias Bolsonaro, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil http://statements.unmeetings.org/GA74/BR_EN.pdf. United Nations PaperSmart (24 September 2019).

Country , Beauty , Nature , Falseness

“When the world stock markets collapse — as soon as it is obvious that they are on their final plunge — Maitreya will emerge. He will take up an invitation to appear on a major television network in the United States. The invitation has already been issued, but Maitreya will determine the timing of the interview. After the initial interview, all the networks will want to interview Him. However, He will not be introduced as Maitreya or the Christ, but simply as a man of extraordinary wisdom and love.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Awakening of Humanity (2008)

Time , Appearance , Christ , World

“She knew Pota had a larger respect for personal privacy than he did for God, Congress, or the U. S. Constitution and never looked at anything there except, occasionally, for the remote control to the television set.”

Joseph Heller book Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man

Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (2000)

Personality , God

“And then along came Satan’s Eye Itself. Television.”

Lucius Shepard book Green Eyes

He laughed, as at some fatal irony. “Don’t you hear the evil hum of the word, the knell of Satan? Television! It’s the ruling character of your lives, like the moon must have been for Indians. An oracle, a companion, a signal of the changing seasons. But rather than divine illumination, each night it spews forth Satan’s imagery. Murders, car crashes, mad policemen, perverted strangers! And you lie there decomposing in its flickering, blue-gray light, absorbing His horrid fantasies!”
Source: Green Eyes (1984), Chapter 10, p. 115

“The American Left champions causes such as gay rights (including gay marriage), equality for women (suffrage, the right to work, etc.), and religious freedom (usually in the form of freedom from religion). Yet, fundamentalist Islam opposes nearly everything the American Left stands for. In many Islamic countries, homosexuality is punishable by death. In Iran, a top government official recently said that torture followed by death is the appropriate punishment for being gay. In Saudi Arabia, women can’t vote, run for public office, or drive cars. Women are routinely jailed and beaten for merely being in the presence of a man not related to them. The Saudi version of Dr. Phil provides televised lessons to men on how to properly beat their wives. In many Islamic countries, women are forced into arranged marriages and held as property by their husbands, something not exactly in line with progressive Western thinking. In some Muslim countries, women aren’t even allowed to decide what clothes to wear. To reveal even the smallest patch of skin is a crime. Religious freedom is often nonexistent under Islamic rule. In countries like Afghanistan and Iran, people who convert from Islam to another religion face public execution. So why does the American Left hate Christianity yet love Islam?”

Chuck Hustmyre (1963) American journalist

2000s, 2009, The Left's love affair with Islam (2009)

Clothes , Religion , Hate , Freedom

“For twelve months now, since I first began the practice of law, since I became an attorney, a man who speak for others, a counselor at law who has the power to address the court, that’s right, a big man, a mature person who helps others in distress—for approximately 365 days time has been nothing but a never-ending experience that meets me in the morning just like it left me off the night before. No longer am I the clear-headed mathematician of my college years. I used to have the answers; and if I didn’t, I could always turn to the back of the book or ask Professor Blackburn at Wednesday morning’s advanced algebra class. For a year now, my only conscious concern has been the pain in my stomach, the arguments of Dr. Serbin, and the schedules of the television shows. I know them all by heart. I can quote every single fucking show on Channels 2, 4, 5, 7, and, you won’t believe it, even on the educational station, Channel 9. I am the world’s only living T. V. Guide, that’s really what I am. And they want me to counsel them!”

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 24.

Pain , Time , Night , Law

“Irene the Slut sits on top of the television, the atmosphere of Russian vodka about her skin.”

Carole Morin British writer

Dead Glamorous (1996)

“The way we work, the way we talk, the way we watch television or walk down the street, even the way we fuck, or maybe that especially—each of those is part of the problem of identity. We can’t do any of those things authentically until we find out who we really are and be that person, inside and out, instead of the person other people want us to be. Usually those other people, if they want us to be something we aren’t, are using us as a laboratory for working out their own identity problems.”

Thomas M. Disch (1940–2008) Novelist, short story writer, poet

Emancipation: A Romance of the Times to Come (1971)

Personality , People , Problem , Way

“The television screen, so unlike the movie screen, sharply reduced human beings, revealed them as small, trivial, flat, in two banal dimensions, drained of color. Wasn’t there something reassuring about it!”

Joyce Carol Oates book You Must Remember This

that human beings were in fact merely images of a kind registered in one another’s eyes and brains, phenomena composed of microscopic flickering dots like atoms. They were atoms — nothing more. A quick switch of the dial and they disappeared and who could lament the loss?
You Must Remember This (1987), pt. 1, ch. 13

Color

“When people are content, they are difficult to maneuver. We are perennially discontent and offered placebos as remedies. My intention in writing this book is to make you feel better, to offer you a solution to the way you feel. I am confident that this is necessary. When do you ever meet people that are happy? Genuinely happy? Only children, the mentally ill, and daytime television presenters. My belief is that it is possible to feel happier, because I feel better than I used to. I am beginning to understand where the solution lies, primarily because of an exhausting process of trial and mostly error. My qualification to write a book on how to change yourself and change the world is not that I’m better than you, it’s that I’m worse. Not that I’m smarter, but that I’m dumber: I bought the lie hook, line, and sinker. My only quality has been an unwitting momentum, a willingness to wade through the static dissatisfaction that has been piped into my mind from the moment I learned language. What if that feeling of inadequacy, isolation, and anxiety isn’t just me? What if it isn’t internally engineered but the result of concerted effort, the product of a transmission? An ongoing broadcast from the powerful that has colonized my mind? Who is it in here, inside your mind, reading these words, feeling that fear? Is there an awareness, an exempt presence, gleaming behind the waterfall of words that commentate on every event, label every object, judge everyone you come into contact with? And is there another way to feel? Is it possible to be in this world and feel another way? Can you conceive, even for a moment, of a species similar to us but a little more evolved, that have transcended the idea that solutions to the way we feel can be externally acquired? What would that look like? How would that feel—to be liberated from the bureaucracy of managing your recalcitrant mind. Is it possible that there is a conspiracy to make us feel this way?”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Confidence , Reading , Making love , Understanding

“Films of the mating behavior of most other species — a staple of public television of America — demonstrate that the female chooses.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Males pursue, show off, brawl, scuffle, and make general fools of themselves for love. A major failing of most feminist ideology is its dumb, ungenerous stereotyping of men as tyrants and abusers, when in fact — as I know full well from my own mortifying lesbian experience — men are tormented by women’s flirtatiousness and hemming and hawing, their manipulations and changeableness, their humiliating rejections. Cock teasing is a universal reality. It is part of women’s merciless testing and cold-eyed comparison shopping for potential mates. Men will do anything to win the favor of women.
Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 35

Behavior

“Television is to news as a bumper sticker is to Shakespeare. I remember hearing an analogy once that went something like that. Your typical nightly, 35-minute TV news broadcast is a headline service with pictures. Five minutes of police-blotter reporting - fires, murders, car accidents, etc.”

Mike Rosen (1944) American political pundit

five minutes of human-interest stories and small talk, five minutes of weather, five minutes of sports, ten minutes of commercials, and maybe a minute or two for business, science, politics, and affairs of the world.
July 3, 1998 Denver Post column

Cars

“I watched an old American submarine movie on television. The creaking plot had the captain and first officer constantly at each other’s throat. The submarine was a fossil, and one guy had claustrophobia. But all that didn’t stop everything from working out well in the end. It was an everything-works-out-in-the-end-so-maybe-war’s-not-so-bad-after-all sort of film. One of these days they’ll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982)

War , Bad luck , Making love , Guy

“In general, the best thing to do when you suspect people of trying to distract you from the truth is not to actively confront them in the beginning, but in fact to encourage them to continue by showing interest in what they are saying or doing. You want them to talk more, to reveal more signs of tension and contrivance. At the right moment you must surprise them with a question or remark that is designed to make them uncomfortable, revealing you are onto them. Pay attention to the microexpressions and body language they emit at such moments. If they are really deceiving, they will often have a freeze response as they take this in, and then quickly try to mask the underlying anxiety. This was the favorite strategy of detective Columbo in the television series of the same name—facing criminals who had tried to reverse engineer the evidence to make it look like someone else had done it, Columbo would pretend to be perfectly friendly and harmless but then would suddenly ask an uncomfortable question and then pay extra attention to the face and body.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Truth , Making love , People , Question

“The inner revolution will not be televised or sold on the Internet. It must take place within one's own mind and heart.”

Noah Levine (1971) American Buddhist teacher

Dharma Punx: A Memoir (2003)

Heart

“I Photo Elfed all day for a variety of Santas and it struck me that many of the parents don't allow their children to speak at all. A child sits upon Santa's lap and the parents say, 'All right now, Amber, tell Santa what you want. Tell him you want a Baby Alive and My Pretty Ballerina and that winter coat you saw in the catalog.'
The parents name the gifts they have already bought. They don't want to hear the word 'pony' or 'television set,' so they talk through the entire visit, placing words in the child's mouth. When the child hops off the lap, the parents address their children, each and every time, with, 'What do you say to Santa?'
The child says, 'Thank you, Santa.'”

David Sedaris book Barrel Fever

It is sad because you would like to believe that everyone is unique and then they disappoint you every time by being exactly the same, asking for the same things, reciting the exact same lines as though they have been handed a script.
All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to the fingerprints.
Essay, "Santaland diaries" - p.233-234, 235
Barrel Fever (1994)

Baby , Time , Photo , Children

“If the streambed of education is being enlarged, one formidable force altering its contours is competition. Learning is where you find it: on "Sesame Street," in inner games of tennis and the Zen of everything, in teaching and learning cooperatives, in computers, on FM radio, in self-help books, in magazines... and television documentaries.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn

Game , Help , Learning , Self-confidence

“Hey! Heey! Heey! Heeey! Disgraced Satan television!”

Luiz Carlos Alborghetti (1945–2009) Italian-Brazilian radio commenter, showman and political figure

Original: (pt) Ei! Eei! Eeei! Eeeei! Desgraça de televisão do Satanás!

quote he angrily shouts when he is told of a technical failure in the studio

“Any time I'm not playing, I watch the game at home on television. That way I can relax and if I decide to make a catch off my playroom wall, nobody is the wiser.”

Willie Mays (1931) Baseball player

Regarding his decision not to attend Game 1 of the 1960 World Series, despite having been in Pittsburgh the previous day for a TV appearance; as quoted in "Change of Pace" by Bill Nunn, Jr., in The Pittsburgh Courier (October 15, 1960), p. 25

Home , Time , Game , Way

“It is both a pointless and a churlish thing to praise the old days at the expense of the new, though there are a number of things a man might reasonably have preferred to commercial television and the hydrogen bomb.”

A. A. Thomson (1894–1968) cricketer and author

Odd Men In (1958)

“Maitreya will call for the creation of trust. There is no trust between the nations. No one trusts anyone. So no one can do anything. Banks don’t lend as they did before. He will talk about the need for trust, and without it how nothing can happen for the good. And competition of course destroys trust. It is the opposite. Co-operation is necessary for humanity. We are all hooked on greed and competition – and you see the result, we are living it. Every time you turn on your television you hear about firms going out of business, the banks don’t lend and so on. That is the result of competition and greed, and it is folly. Sharing is the only solution.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Quoted in Questions & Answers, Share International https://www.share-international.org/magazine/old_issues/2018/2018-10.htm#q-n-a (October 2018)
Share International Magazine

Business , Time

“The press, television, and movies make heroes of vandals by calling them whiz kids. ... There is obviously a cultural gap. The act of breaking into a computer system has to have the same social stigma as breaking into a neighbor's house. It should not matter that the neighbor's door is unlocked.”

Ken Thompson (1943) American computer scientist, creator of the Unix operating system

"Reflections on Trusting Trust" http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/360000/358210/reflections.pdf, 1983 Turing Award Lecture, Communications of the ACM 27 (8), August 1984, pp. 761-763.

Making love , Housing

“I love sci-fi, especially when it comes to dialogue with fans; they're so involved with the series. It's a great experience to be able to talk with the fans of the show. As an actor, you know much more about your character, even more so sometimes than gets shown on the show. Sci-fi fans really have a commitment to the characters even as much as the actors do. There's a synergy between making television and who gets to watch it.”

Brooke Nevin (1982) Canadian actress

'Breakout Kings' Actor Brooke Nevin Grows Up https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/breakout-kings-actor-brooke-nevin-grows-56115/ (June 1, 2011)

Love , Making love

“Creativity is an interesting thing…You can sit back, have a glass of wine, watch some television…and get a terrific idea of what you want to do…The great thing about being at home is that as soon as you get an idea you can put a mike at the piano and record it. That way you don’t lose the vibes, and you don’t have to worry about finishing before the studio’s next booking arrives…”

Dan Hartman (1950–1994) American singer, songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist, record producer

Source: On how he intended the “The Schoolhouse” to work for the artist in “Hartman’s Little Schoolhouse Haven for Aspiring Musicians” https://books.google.com/books?id=_CMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT66&dq in Billboard (1981 Aug 15)

Home , Books , Way , Idea

“Really, honestly, the hours in network television are insane, it’s like sixteen hours a day, fifteen hours a day. Sometimes six days a week. And it’s been like three and a half months of doing that. That’s why I get very protective of my weekends because I have so much dialog to learn and have very little time to sleep and be a normal human.”

Isabel Lucas (1985) Australian actress

Isabel Lucas talks ‘The Osiris Child’ and being no stranger to special effects. https://scifimonkeys.com/2017/11/14/isabel-lucas-talks-the-osiris-child-and-being-no-stranger-to-special-effects-interview/ (November 14, 2017)

Sleep , Time , Learning

“People think I hate sex. I don’t. I just don’t like things that stop you seeing the television properly.”

Victoria Wood (1953–2016) British comedian

Source: https://inews.co.uk/light-relief/jokes/victoria-wood-jokes-146280

Sex , Thinking , Hate , People

“The people who are involved in the development of making films and television are not necessarily the most imaginative of people, to be honest. Well, they're not! I'm not being generically rude. But it's just a fact.”

Robbie Coltrane (1950–2022) Scottish actor

Source: Robbie Coltrane: 'I take no nonsense' https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/nov/09/robbie-coltrane-interview-great-expectations (9 November 2012)

Imagination , Making love , People

“As new technologies search out and lace over every interstice in the net of global communication, we find ourselves with increasingly less excuse for…slack. And that, I would argue, is what the World Wide Web, the test pattern for whatever will become the dominant global medium, offers us. Today, in its clumsy, larval, curiously innocent way, it offers us the opportunity to waste time…It will probably evolve into something considerably less random, and less fun — we seem to have a knack for that — but in the meantime, in its gloriously unsorted Global Ham Television Postcard Universes phase, surfing the Web is a procrastinator’s dream. And people who see you doing it might even imagine you’re working.”

William Gibson book Distrust That Particular Flavor

"The Net Is a Waste of Time," The New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1996.
Distrust That Particular Flavor (2012)

Imagination , Time , Search , Dreams

“In the age of wooden television in the South where I grew up, leisure involved sitting on screened porches, smoking cigarettes, drinking iced tea, engaging in conversation, and staring into space. It might also involve fishing. Sometimes the Web does remind me of fishing.”

William Gibson book Distrust That Particular Flavor

"The Net Is a Waste of Time," The New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1996.
Distrust That Particular Flavor (2012)

Fish , Drink , Age , Tea

“I was born in 1948. I can’t recall a world before television…Initially there was nothing on it but “snow,” and then the nightly advent of a targetlike device called “the test pattern,” which people actually gathered to watch.
I imagine that the World Wide Web and its modest wonders are no more than the test pattern for whatever the twenty-first century will regard as its equivalent medium.”

William Gibson book Distrust That Particular Flavor

"The Net Is a Waste of Time," The New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1996.
Distrust That Particular Flavor (2012)

World , Imagination , People

“In a libertarian society, big business wouldn’t be so big, since they couldn’t destroy their competition through government regulation. Without government control of the airways, more radio and television stations would be available and could not be shut down on political whim.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Short Answers to the Tough Questions: How to Answer the Questions Libertarians Are Often Asked, (2012), p. 230

Business

“All the experience I had in television, radio, theater, stage and films gave me confidence in front of crowds. Because of that, I can talk to an audience of a thousand people without a moment's nervousness, and talk without a script for hours.”

Sara Shane (1928–2022) American actress

Interview with Elaine Hollingsworth https://web.archive.org/web/20071003020618/http://www.tarzan.cc/int-sarashane.html (July 9, 2007)

Self-confidence , Confidence , People

“On television, I tried to absolutely hew to the middle of the road and not show any prejudice or bias in any way.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

Way

“I have the same attitude toward acting in television and in movies. For me, the only difference is the size of the screen.”

Kenji Sahara (1932) Japanese actor

“I think especially television is a conversation between the writer and the audience, and they're bringing all of their humanity to it. The actors are really just this conduit in the middle, who everybody kind of thinks of like the player, but no, we're really the instrument.”

Penn Badgley (1986) American actor and musician

Source: "Penn Badgley Explores Joe Goldberg's 'Primal' Parenting In You Season 3" in ELLE https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a37886117/penn-badgley-you-season-3-interview/ (18 October 2021)

Thinking

“Once you asked me about crime nowadays - I said any such interest pathological - maybe prompted by the endless sickening television programmes of your time - never able to watch more than few minutes myself... disgusting!”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Source: 1990s, 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)

Time

“Technology magnifies the ability of one person to have a big impact on other people. If that doesn't scare you, then the next time you see professional wrestling on television, look at the crowd shots and ask yourself if you'd like those people to have a bigger impact on your life.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Source: Books, The Dilbert Future (1997)

Personality , People , Time , Life

“As long as you have a television screen or a streamer, we are living in an era where we can connect and enjoy any content from any place around the world very easily.”

Gong Yoo (1979) South Korean actor

Source: "Gong Yoo Opens Up On K-content Success Across The World As 'The Silent Sea' Hits Netflix" https://www.republicworld.com/entertainment-news/rest-of-the-world/gong-yoo-opens-up-on-k-content-success-across-the-world-as-the-silent-sea-hits-netflix.html (24 December 2021)

World

“It’s absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the synergy of variety; indeed it cuts you off from your own past and future, sealing you in a continuous present much the same way television does.”

John Taylor Gatto book Dumbing Us Down

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992), p. 24

People , Way , Age , Past

“All right, that's pretty much all I got. The only thing I have left to do, for the last time on a television program: Thank you and good night.”

David Letterman (1947) American comedian and actor

Source: Final sign-off at end of final show, Late Night with David Letterman (20 May 2015).

Time , Night

“Aggressive marketing of war affects people and they start thinking that war is acceptable. Governments and their propaganda supporters are fully responsible for the militaristic rhetoric on state-owned television channels.”

Dmitry Muratov (1961) Russian journalist and television presenter

War , People , Support , Thinking

“I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. With the laugh comes the tears and in developing motion pictures or television shows, you must combine all the facts of life — drama, pathos and humor.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

Source: Year unknown, published in 2004, How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life (2004), Ch. 1 : It All Started with a Boy, p. 16

Tear , Life

“Today, the image always comes first, and it is enough to look at the women on our television to realize it. I don't want to make a bundle of all the grass, but having a nice and seductive image is necessary. I don't even know if it is wrong: a beautiful woman is right to be appreciated also for her own aesthetics. The problem occurs when, at an audition and with the same talent, the girl with the dress is taken instead of the girl in the suit. I realized I had a weapon available, my body, and I decided to use it. It is wrong, however, that talent alone is not enough.”

Paola Di Benedetto (1995) Italian showgirl, model, television presenter and radio host

Original: (it) L'immagine, oggi, arriva sempre prima, ed è sufficiente guardare le donne della nostra televisione per rendersene conto. Non voglio fare di tutta l'erba un fascio, ma avere un'immagine piacente e seducente è necessario. Non so neanche dire se sia sbagliato: una donna bella è giusto si faccia apprezzare anche per la propria estetica. Il problema subentra quando, ad un provino e a parità di talento, viene presa la ragazza con il vestitino al posto della ragazza in tailleur. Io ho capito di aver a disposizione un’arma, il mio corpo, e ho deciso di sfruttarla. È sbagliato, però, che il solo talento non sia sufficiente.
Source: From the interview with de Claudia Casiraghi, Paola Di Benedetto: La bellezza aiuta, ma non basta https://www.vanityfair.it/people/italia/2020/12/07/paola-di-benedetto-oltre-il-corpo-libro-se-ci-credi-interviste, vanitifayr.it, 7 December 2020.

Girl , Grass , Beauty , Problem

“I am an actress and I have performed in all types of mediums; live action film/television, theater, voice-over, hosting and it has been my dream for 14 years to continue to play Ahsoka Tano in all forms”

Ashley Eckstein (1981) American actress

quotes

Dreams

Quotes about television page 7

Quotes about television
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