Andy Rooney Quotes & Sayings

Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens. — Andy Rooney

I've learned ... That love, not time, heals all wounds. — Andy Rooney

I've learned ... that everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile. — Andy Rooney

My advice is not to wait to be struck by an idea. If you're a writer, you sit down and damn well decide to have an idea. — Andy Rooney

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."
~ (1919-), American writer, producer, humorist. — Andy Rooney

Last night we had three small zucchini for dinner that were grown within fifty feet of our back door. I estimate they cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $371.49 each. — Andy Rooney

When those waiters ask me if I want some fresh ground pepper, I ask if they have any aged pepper. — Andy Rooney

I am not retiring. Writers don't retire. Writers never stop writing. — Andy Rooney

Looking and not finding is certainly one of the most frustrating ways to spend time. — Andy Rooney

Half the cookbooks tell you how to cook the food and the other half tell you how to avoid eating it. — Andy Rooney

If dogs could talk, it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one. — Andy Rooney

I hate to say it, but I had a great time in World War II. — Andy Rooney

I think Dan [Rather] is transparently liberal. Now he may not like to hear me say that. I always agree with him, too. But I think he should be more careful. — Andy Rooney

Most of the people in the world are good and decent if you give them a chance to be ... — Andy Rooney

People waiting for an elevator don't know what to do, standing with strangers. There is nothing to do. Its an uneasy time. Some press the button repeatedly as though it would help. — Andy Rooney

In a conversation, keep in mind that you're more interested in what you have to say than anyone else is. — Andy Rooney

The last birthday that's any good is 23. — Andy Rooney

The English language is more complex than calculus because numbers don't have nuances. — Andy Rooney

A little-recognized value of listening and inquiring relates to the realization that in human relationships, it is frequently not what the I've learned ... that it is best to give advice in only two circumstances: when it is requested and when it is a life-threatening situation. — Andy Rooney

No one likes the house next door to look worse or a lot better than his own. — Andy Rooney

I dislike loud-mouthed patriots who think they like our country more than I do. Some people's idea of patriotism is hating other countries. — Andy Rooney

One question in my mind, which I hardly dare mention in public, is whether patriotism has, overall, been a force for good or evil in the world. Patriotism is rampant in war and there are some good things about it. Just as self-respect and pride bring out the best in an individual, pride in family, pride in teammates, pride in hometown bring out the best in groups of people. War brings out the kind of pride in country that encourages its citizens in the direction of excellence and it encourages them to be ready to die for it. At no time do people work so well together to achieve the same goal as they do in wartime. Maybe that's enough to make patriotism eligible to be considered a virtue. If only I could get out of my mind the most patriotic people who ever lived, the Nazi Germans. — Andy Rooney

I like Valentine's Day. The trouble is the florists and the candy-makers and the card people are all advertising so much, you don't dare let the day go by without making an offering, whether you mean it or not. Money exceeds affection. — Andy Rooney

Dogs are nicer than people. — Andy Rooney

I'm an admirer of everything Dr. Martin Luther King stood for, but I don't think he would have stood for this — Andy Rooney

Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them. — Andy Rooney

Did you ever notice that people who are good with a computer don't use it for much of anything except being good with a computer? They know all about information technology, but they don't have much interest in the information. I'm the opposite. — Andy Rooney

I've learned ... That I can always pray for someone when I don't have the strength to help him in some other way. — Andy Rooney

The best Christmas trees come very close to exceeding nature. If some of our great decorated trees had been grown in a remote forest area with lights that came on every evening as it grew dark, the whole world would come to look at them and marvel at the mystery of their great beauty. — Andy Rooney

For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of 40 +, there is a balding, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year-old waitress. — Andy Rooney

There's nothing people like better than being asked an easy question. For some reason, we're flattered when a stranger asks us where Maple Street is in our hometown and we can tell him. — Andy Rooney

The Christmas tree is a symbol of love, not money. There's a kind of glory to them when they're all lit up that exceeds anything all the money in the world could buy. — Andy Rooney

I like ice hockey, but it's a frustrating game to watch. It's hard to keep your eyes on both the puck and the players and too much time passes between scoring in hockey. There are usually more fights than there are points. — Andy Rooney

In Washington, a confidential assistant is someone who, if you don't want to know something, you go and ask him and he won't tell you. — Andy Rooney

One of my major shortcomings - I'm vindictive. I don't know why that is. Even in petty things in my life I tend to strike back. It's a lot more pleasurable a sensation than feeling threatened. — Andy Rooney

I just sat there looking at television, sort of dumb and thought how horrible it was. I had
the grand aspects of it did not occur to me
I had no notion of this terrorist network that existed. I knew the were a lot of people in the world who didn't like us, but I had no idea that it was as well organized as it apparently is. That's one of the amazing facets of this terrible event: how well they did it. Incredible. The competence of these evil people. — Andy Rooney

I can't choose how i feel. But i can choose what I do about it. — Andy Rooney

The third rule of life is this: Everything you buy today is smaller, more expensive, and not as good as it was yesterday. — Andy Rooney

The biggest seller is cookbooks and the second is diet books - how not to eat what you've just learned how to cook. — Andy Rooney

Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated. — Andy Rooney

I've learned ... That when you're in love, it shows. — Andy Rooney

I've learned that life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes. — Andy Rooney

Small daily happenings make life spectacular ... start enjoying the small things in life! — Andy Rooney

Once you pass forty, a dime isn't worth bending over to pick up if you drop one. — Andy Rooney

I'm already suspicious of anyone who thinks he or she is smart enough to be president. You'd have to have some ego to believe that about yourself. — Andy Rooney

Before a kid learns how to use a computer that can solve mathematical problems, he or she should know how to do arithmetic without a computer. — Andy Rooney

Ugly is very popular this year ... I had a feeling these clothes were deigned by someone who didn't like women. — Andy Rooney

I know a lot of you believe that most people in the news business are liberal. Let me tell you, I know a lot of them, and they were almost evenly divided this time. Half of them liked Senator Kerry; the other half hated President Bush. — Andy Rooney

We should change our attitude toward the United Nations. There has to be some power in the world superior to our own. We should not have attacked Iraq without the okay of the United Nations. Now we have to live with that mistake. We're living with it, and too many of our guys are dying with it. — Andy Rooney

Person-to-person, most people are honest. — Andy Rooney

Writers don't retire. I will always be a writer. — Andy Rooney

I hope all of you are going to fill out your census form when it comes in the mail next month. If you don't return the form the area you live in might get less government money and you wouldn't want that to happen, would you. — Andy Rooney

In spite of some bad experiences, I'm a firm believer in the trial and error method of learning. — Andy Rooney

Vegetarian: Indian word for lousy hunter. — Andy Rooney

I've learned ... That simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult. — Andy Rooney

I've learned ... That having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world. — Andy Rooney

You can't be a good writer without being a good thinker. — Andy Rooney

One of the things we can be sure of over the July 4th weekend is that news reports will keep telling us how many of us are going to die in automobile accidents. — Andy Rooney

Numbers tend to give the impression that there's more order in the world than there is. — Andy Rooney

Numbers are the most certain things we have. — Andy Rooney

One day about 10 years ago the door to my office opened and who walked in but Bill Gates ... Seemed like a nice guy and has done more with his money than most billionaires. But that's as far as I want to go being kind to Bill Gates. — Andy Rooney

If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it. — Andy Rooney

I've learned ... That when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere. — Andy Rooney

One of the sweetest things in life: a letter from a friend. — Andy Rooney

By the time they're ready to be thrown away, most shoes are thoroughly comfortable — Andy Rooney

I've learned ... That the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done. — Andy Rooney

If you do see me in a restaurant, please, just let me eat my dinner. — Andy Rooney

Some people who hated Americans set out to kill a lot of us and they succeeded [on 9/11] ... We're trying to protect ourselves with more weapons. We have to do it, I guess, but it might be better if we figured out how to behave as a nation in a way that wouldn't make so many people in the world want to kill us. — Andy Rooney

I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some governmental stooge with a bad comb-over who wants to give it away to crack addicts for squirting out babies. — Andy Rooney

Space, like Switzerland, should be neutral. — Andy Rooney

The trouble with dictionaries is, they tell you more about words than you want to know without answering the question you have. — Andy Rooney

We're all proud of making little mistakes. It gives us the feeling we don't make any big ones. — Andy Rooney

We've sent a man to the moon and that's 29,000 miles away. The center of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week but for some reason nobody's ever done it. — Andy Rooney

When it comes to educating all of us about the most basic things in life, it seems to me we need more kindergartens and fewer graduate schools. — Andy Rooney

I'm always on the lookout for something good about people. Often months go by. — Andy Rooney

I've learned ... That life is tough, but I'm tougher. — Andy Rooney

Figure skating is an unlikely Olympic event but its good television. It's sort of a combination of gymnastics and ballet. A little sexy too which doesn't hurt. — Andy Rooney

The average bright young man who is drafted hates the whole business because an army always tries to eliminate the individual differences in men. — Andy Rooney

Phyllis Schlafly speaks for all American women who oppose equal rights for themselves. — Andy Rooney

Don't you hate it when ... your suitcase is the last one off the airplane? — Andy Rooney

We're all torn between the desire for privacy and the fear of lonliness. We need each other and we need to get away from each other. We need proximity and distance, conversation and silence. We almost always get more of each than we want at any one time. — Andy Rooney

Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives. — Andy Rooney

It's not so much that I write well, I just don't write badly very often and that passes for good on television. — Andy Rooney

The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong. — Andy Rooney

I never get over feeling bad about tearing open a beautifully wrapped present. It takes ten seconds to destroy a work of art that took someone ten minutes to accomplish. — Andy Rooney

I don't know anything offhand that mystifies Americans more than the cotton they put in pill bottles. Why do they do it? Are you supposed to put the cotton back in once you've taken a pill out? — Andy Rooney

There is obviously a great human need for religion because life seems to be such a mystery. — Andy Rooney

I just wish insignificance had more stature. — Andy Rooney

The dullest Olympic sport is curling, whatever 'curling' means. — Andy Rooney

I often pass a farm with cows grazing in the field and I think to myself how terrible it is that human beings grow other animals just to kill them and eat them. Most of us think of vegetarians as nuts and I'm not a vegetarian but I wouldn't be surprised if we came to a time in 50 or 100 years when civilized people everywhere refused to eat animals. — Andy Rooney

I've learned ... That to ignore the facts does not change the facts. — Andy Rooney

The one affectation I have forced on the publisher ... are my apostrophe-free ellisions. Because I write my scripts to read myself, I dont spell 'don't' with an apostrophe. I spell it 'dont'. We all know the word and it seems foolish to put in an extraneous apostrophe. Punctuation marks are devices we use to make the meaning of sentences clear. There is nothing confusing about a word like 'dont' printed without an apostrophe to indicate an omitted letter. — Andy Rooney

Let's make a statement to the airlines just to get their attention. We'll pick a week next year and we'll all agree not to go anywhere for seven days. — Andy Rooney

I am interested in details. If you go into anything far enough, you get into the details of it, and people turn out to be interested in what makes things work. — Andy Rooney

Conservatives are more religious than liberals
although there is no evidence that they're nicer people because of it. — Andy Rooney

We aren't consistent in our treatment of animals. — Andy Rooney

Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it. — Andy Rooney

Love is more pleasant once you get out of your twenties. It doesn't hurt all the time. — Andy Rooney

I don't pick subjects as much as they pick me. — Andy Rooney

My mother always called me 'sturdy' and said I have big bones. A little fat is what I am. — Andy Rooney