Best Television Quotes & Sayings

Amazon has included me in an opportunity to provide top-shelf television-style programming live on the world's computer screens. To hold forth with the industry's very best actors, directors, musicians, authors - I'm thrilled to be on the cutting edge of this. — Bill Maher

Chuck Lorre and I had been talking about doing one of his shows for a while. I said I'd like to do 'The Big Bang Theory,' because I think it's the best written, most intelligent show on television. — Bob Newhart

Skiers make the best lovers because they don't sit in front of a television like couch potatoes. They take a risk and they wiggle their behinds. They also meet new people on the ski lift. — Ruth Westheimer

The neatest thing about television is that they write for you ... They find out what you can do, what you do best, how it works, and how they can use you. — Ann B. Davis

Television makes so much at its worst that it can't afford to do its best. — Fred W. Friendly

By validating and aggregating the best material from a wide range of independent and mainstream content owners, Babelgum aims to encourage common interest communities that are not well served by traditional television. — Silvio Scaglia

You can say that all you want, but even in the little time that I've been in this industry, I've learned that it isn't exactly what you expect, so you've got to have a level head. I thought people would dig it. I thought people would enjoy it. It's AMC. I thought people would be fans. But, I did not think we would be the best new show on television. — Steven Yeun

A lot of times, us within the industry, we can put this bubble around ourselves and create what a show is supposed to look like and sound like, and we're seeing so much content. The best compliment is, 'I finally found something to watch with my family,' or, 'This is how I really feel, and I can't believe they're showing this on television.' — Jerrod Carmichael

It's hard to make a film in Britain. It's hard to raise money. The best stuff that is shot on film in Britain is usually shot on film for television. — James Nesbitt

The Simpsons is the best thing on American television. — Stephen Hawking

Initially, the television was seen as the devil incarnate by people that worked in the content industry. Now over time it turned out that that was one of the best things that ever could have happened to a content creator. I think the Internet is no different. — Jason Kilar

Well, life isn't cheap. It's the greatest mystery of any millennium, and television needs to do all it can to broadcast that ... to show and tell what the good in life is all about.
But how do we make goodness attractive? By doing whatever we can do to bring courage to those whose lives move near our own
by treating our 'neighbor' at least as well as we treat ourselves and allowing that to inform everything that we produce.
Who in your life has been such a servant to you? Who has helped you love the good that grows within you? Let's just take ten seconds to think of some of those people who have loved us and wanted what was best for us in life, those who have encouraged us to become who we are tonight - just ten seconds of silence.
No matter where they are, either here or in heaven, imagine how pleased those people must be to know that you thought of them right now. — Fred Rogers

I think religion is best when it's reduced to a one hour television program. — Rob Campbell

The best things on television are its junk, and no one and nothing is seriously threatened by it. Besides, we do not measure a culture by its output of undisguised trivialities but by what it claims as significant. Therein is our problem, for television is at its most trivial and, therefore, most dangerous when its aspirations are high, when it presents itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations. The irony here is that this is what intellectuals and critics are constantly urging television to do. — Neil Postman

News is the best drama on television because it's real. — Deborah Turness

I had no idea what effect something blockbustering would have. To me, it was just a job that I was trying to do the best I could. We had shot the first five shows before it went on the air. Then, it was this firecracker hit, and people were recognizing me, so it was just nuts. It was overwhelming, insane, wonderful and scary all at the same time. It's really peculiar that people see you on television and then think they have a personal relationship with you. So, they want to touch you, and grab you, and sit down and have lunch with you. It's strange, and you never get used to that. — Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs

I acknowledge Mike Leigh and Ken Loach. They are prostlytizers of English socialism preaching to the converted and telling us what we already know. Cinema is best served away from documentary neo-realism. I come from a tradition of post-post-Italian neo-realism in England, where we've produced the best television in the world. But to paraphrase Truffaut, the English have no visual imagination. — Peter Greenaway

Once 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 Hunter

I just think 'Broad City' - Comedy Central's answer to 'Girls' - is the best thing that's been put on television in years. It's amazing. — Mackenzie Davis

When I was a young kid, the best stuff on television was always the BBC period dramas - it was what we sat down as a family to watch and what people talked about and looked forward to. — Neil Jackson

I think it's brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I've ever seen is called television - but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent. — Steve Jobs

My grin tipped up on one side. "I'm sorry. Who asked about the television screens in my truck?"
Her lush lips thinned. "And how long did it take you to pick out the watermelon? Thirty minutes?"
"Twenty-nine," I shot back. "And it's the best fucking watermelon I've ever had. Worth every minute."
A single brow quirked. "You want a medal?"
I leaned over the counter and she met my stare. I wasn't sure what was happening, but it seemed like the air cracked with electricity, heating my skin, quickening my pulse. This couldn't be normal. Maybe I was getting sick. I'd overheated in all of the seventy-eight degrees outside. Yeah, that had to be it.
"I'd love one."
It was so fast, I almost missed it. Her gaze dipped to my mouth before dropping to the island again. "There isn't any more room on your shelf for one more medal."
"I'll just put up another shelf."
"I'm sure you would. — Ashlan Thomas

What's the best way of communicating in the world today? Television? No. Telegraph? No. Telephone? No. Tell a woman. — Bunker Roy

You should've thought of that before becoming a fireman."
"Thought!" he said. "Was I given a choice? I was raised to think the best thing in the world is not to read. The best thing is television and radio and ball games and a home I can't afford and, Good Lord, now, only now I realize what I've done. My grandfather and father were firemen. Walking in my sleep I followed them. — Ray Bradbury

Honestly, all of 'Breaking Bad' was the best television experience of my entire life - the writing, the crew, the other actors. — Mark Margolis

I started in live television and I've done a lot of live TV and that's really the thing that I love best. I love flying by the seat of my pants. — Florence Henderson

One of the best parts of Thanksgiving for me is re-watching some of the classic holiday blunders that have been depicted on television. I remember laughing uncontrollably on the set of 'That Girl' back in 1967 when we shot the episode, 'Thanksgiving Comes But Once A Year, Hopefully' during our second season. — Marlo Thomas

I just personally feel like the best writing for actors exists in cable television. — Donal Logue

The best show on television is Red Sox baseball. Everything else sucks. — Stephen King

I have always said that the best training to be a TV newsman or anybody on television is to do a children's show because you are oblivious to the fact that there is a camera there. — Willard Scott

I did honest television. Real, live, honest television. That's what I did best. — Greg Garrison

David Epstein, the author of the best book on athletics in recent memory - "The Sports Gene" - wrote to me to say that he thinks I'm being overly generous. He points out that, for years, there used to be an "all-star challenge" on television, in which the best professional athletes from a variety of sports competed in a kind of makeshift decathlon. — Malcolm Gladwell

Lend stood up, shouldering his duffel bag, as I walked back into the living room. "Where do you think you're going?" I snatched his coat away and held it. He just got here. There was no way I was letting him go anywhere else.
"I happen to have very important things to do."
"What on earth is more important than watching Easton Heights??"
"Christmas shopping for you?"
I dropped the coat into his arms and opened the door. "Take your time."
"Glad to know I'll be missed."
"Have fun!" I leaned up and kissed him hard, then shoved him out and sat back on the couch with a sloppy smile on my face. "Best boyfriend ever."
"Shut. Up. Now." Arianna didn't move, eyes fixed on the television. A firm knock sounded on the door. "And tell Lend he can just walk in already!"
"Did you forget something?" I said as I opened the door, surprised to see a short black woman in a suit. And not Lend pretending to be one, either. — Kiersten White

'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' was the best television, the best cast, the best-written television show ever. — Bob Newhart

The best of American television is thought-provoking, original, brilliant, exciting - from 'The Sopranos' on, whether it's 'The Wire' or 'Breaking Bad' or 'House of Cards,' they're fantastic pieces of art. — Martin Freeman

There's also a possibility that the landlord is in there right now, wearing women's undergarments. Or a drug addict is inside stealing jewelry.Or a boatload of recent Chinese immigrants without a television watching Russia play Finland in hockey and placing bets over beer.
You have no idea what's behind that door. You can't just pick the options within your field of vision. Reality comes from everywhere. At best, you can narrow down the likelihoods. But in the end, it's not a matter of deduction. It's a matter of fact. One bullet will kill you if you're stupid or unlucky. So at least don't be stupid — Derek B. Miller

Do you know how, sometimes, during a commercial break in your favorite television shows, your best friend calls and wants to talk about one of her boyfriends, and when you try to hang up, she starts crying and you try to cheer her up and end up missing about half o the episode? And so when you go to work the next day you have to get the guy who sits next to you to explain what happened? That's the good thing about a book. You can mark your place in a book. But this isn't really a book. It's a television show. — Kelly Link

I think it's impossible for any of us not to find television, and the political process at its best on television, compelling. — Peter Jennings

The best thing about television news is, it's immediate. Everything at a news network happens quickly. — Tucker Carlson

Digital books, like television and other media, are best meant for those Pandoras who've already opened their boxes and know what demons to expect inside. — Jason Merkoski

'Breaking Bad' is the best, the greatest, the most amazing thing I have ever watched on television. — Tony Kaye

I have heard Mr. Romney's speech's many times on television and the radio and I have even read his book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness and I must say that out of all the gentleman running for the presidency Mr. Romney is, in my opinion, the best one to fit the bill. — Angela Lansbury

I am all about breaking barriers and challenging myself, that is why everything I have done on my resume is different. I have never played a cop again, and I have never played a boxer again since I played Muhammad Ali. That was a challenge, being darker than him, and the film won Best Television Movie and I was a part of that. I was in Mississippi Burning, which won an Oscar. — Darius McCrary

Get up now and go and find Robert Kilroy-Silk. Smile in a warm, friendly sort of way, then punch him on the nose. Now go and find Robert on television, despite my best endeavours, this is still relatively easy to do. Wait for a close-up, same smile, and punch him on the nose. If you followed the instructions carefully, you will have noticed a distinct difference. On the one hand, you were suffused with a sense of public-spirited righteousness; on the other, you're probably dribbling blood. That's the difference between reality in life and reality on television. — A.A. Gill

The real test is this one: When you're alone in a room, when you're in a private place and nobody else can see you, what do you choose to do? Eat well, or eat poorly? Exercise, or watch television? Practice something, or do nothing? The best version of the truth appears to you and you alone, when nobody else can see. This is the test of discipline, and it's what makes the difference in your life. It's what regulates your own system and guides it. The individual alone comprehends it. — Georges St-Pierre

Television is also a great tool for women. As you know, the best female roles are often on television, so it's a very exciting time. I've really embraced it. The pace is great, but also not so great sometimes. You feel like you have to make sure to pay attention, at all times, to not let anything slip through. — Diane Kruger

I think right now television is the best that it's ever been, and I think that it's the worst that film has ever been. — Dustin Hoffman

The best part of being on a television series for all those years is that you really get to hone your craft. — Steve Kanaly

I wish I could have a recurring role on 'Modern Family'. I think 'Modern Family' is the best comedy on television. It's extremely well written, extremely well acted and directed. — Patti LuPone

The good television of today is probably better than the best television of the old days. The bad television of today is worse. It is not only bad, it is damaging, meretricious, seedy and cynical. — John Humphrys

God, you Jews are truly exotic.
Exotic? She should only know the Greenblatts. Or Mr. and Mrs. Milton Sharpstein, my father's friends. Or for that matter, my cousin Tovah. Exotic? I mean, they're nice, but hardly exotic with their endless bickering over the best way to combat indigestion or how far back to sit from the television set. — Woody Allen

It's a very teenage idea - this idea that thought is ruined when we give over to television shows and glossy magazines and what they are telling us to do. The alternative, I believe, in is pitiless censorship. Because we owe each other the best effort we can to see one another without that mediation. — John Maus

And yet that's the best way to watch television actively: with your eyes closed. — Jean-Philippe Toussaint

We have entered a time when a writer's first idea is his best idea, when the first thing a reporter hears is the first thing that she reports. We live in a time now when we have seen major television networks take video off of YouTube and broadcast it to millions of Americans without verifying whether the video had been fabricated or not. — Scott Pelley

He has a very extensive public relations apparatus that is paid for by the taxpayers of this state. They are some of the best in the business. and he is a master at getting not only television but other media exposure on the basis of confrontation and chaos. — Bill Scott

Television is like the movie business. It's not the least-objectionable program - it's the best program that gets positioned. Same in the movie business. It's not just everything automatically gets done by the "in" crowd. — Henry Blodget

I think the best-written films or television series have a measure of the opposite of what they are. — Bryan Cranston

Oh, I should add, I'm not looting the city, but the people I heal often bring me gifts. I've got a statue of a dog made of gold with bright ruby eyes that dates back two thousand years. I've got the best television set that Arucu Corporation made last year. And I've got a piece of slightly used butcher paper with a crayon drawing of something that might be me or might be a spider, I'm not sure which, with the words "THAK YOU DRRON GRAGON" written on it. And various other treasures. — Bard Bloom

I've always just gone with the best role, and I don't care if it's in theater, film or television. — Kristen Johnston

I heard I won 'best butt crack' on television recently. It's true. I did it, you guys. I made it. I wish I got an award, the actual award. What would it look like? Of course, it's a closed set. — Lisa Edelstein

People have always said since TV was invented what a cultural wasteland it is but I think it is the worst and the best. It is the golden age of television. — Joel McHale

I think the idea that television has evolved to this place of real thematic richness and the fact that you no longer have to get 10 million people to watch your show in order to propagate its survival are the best things that have ever happened to storytelling in this medium. — Damon Lindelof

I'm staying out of this. It's the whole culture of all-consuming nowness I try to avoid. Ever present and screaming its message in the halls, on television, on everyone's personal web pages. Do me, I'm yours. I'm part of the counterculture who actually thinks about the future. Subversive activities are always best kept a secret so I keep my mouth shut. — Deb Caletti

No matter what, I will always prefer a live performance. Whether it be a play or a musical, or playing music live. As long as it's live, it's the best because there's sort of an immediacy to connection between an audience and a performer, whereas where you do film or television, you're at the whim of so many different forces. — Darren Criss

A song in a musical works best when a character has to sing - when words won't do the trick anymore. The same idea applies to a long speech in a play or a movie or on television. You want to force the character out of a conversational pattern. — Aaron Sorkin

It was strange to read about the people he knew in New York, Ed and Lorraine, the newt-brained girl who had tried to stow herself away in his cabin the day he sailed from New York. It was strange and not at all attractive. What a dismal life they led, creeping around New York, in and out of subways, standing in some dingy bar on Third Avenue for their entertainment,watching television, or even if they had enough money for a Madison Avenue bar
or a good restaurant now and then, how dull it all was compared to the worst little
trattoria in Venice with its tables of green salads, trays of wonderful cheeses, and
its friendly waiters bringing you the best wine in the world! 'I certainly do envy
you sitting there in Venice in an old palazzo!' Bob wrote. 'Do you take a lot of gondola rides? How are the girls? Are you getting so cultured you won't speak to any of us when you come back? How long are you staying, anyway ? — Patricia Highsmith

When I saw Elvis on television, I just fell in love with him completely. As a singer, I want to be able to relate to an audience like this man does. Of course, nobody can - he was the best there ever was. — Faith Hill

Television remains an incredible tool when it comes to ensure the best promo, but one thing was always clear to me, I didn't want reality stars; I wanted stars. — Kelly Rowland

All television is an advertisement - that's why it exists. It wasn't the art-form first and then the commerce - it was that they could put on entertainment long enough to distract people into looking at products. It's for focusing people on advertising and separating you from money in some way. Some people forget that. The side product is that we get some great eye candy. TV is the best it has ever been right now. I don't have a problem with that since it's what keep us employed. — Chris Hardwick

He also tried to block the doorway when she left him. My mother ducked under his arm, ran to her car, and drove away. I remember thinking that this was somehow romantic, as it pinpointed the actual memory of my mother's departure, something you don't see a lot of in television. Real people don't slam doors without opening them five minutes later because it's raining and they forgot their umbrella. They don't stop dead in their tracks because they realize they're in love with their best friend.They don't say, "I'm leaving you, Jack," and fade to a paper towel commercial. — Sloane Crosley

When I was younger I used to get my best writing done at night, but now it has to be during the day. I usually finish work at half past seven, then go back to the house to open a bottle of wine, have dinner, and then read or watch television. — Antony Beevor

Every now and then, when you're on stage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It's a sound you can't get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you've hit them where they live. — Shelley Winters

For those whose ganglia were formed pre-TV, the mimetic deployment of pop-culture icons seems at best an annoying tic and at worst a dangerous vapidity that compromises fiction's seriousness by dating it out of the Platonic Always, where it ought to reside. — Jonathan Lethem

Matt Weiner is an amazing writer. He's one of the best, greatest writers that's ever written for television, or just written. — Jared Harris

When we started talking to our actors and to our directors, this is with all due respect to the film, if you want to know what we're not doing, go watch the movie. If you want to know what we're doing, it's very much steeped in the world of the comics, but it also has a life of its own and that's really what television and our films really do is that we take the best ... We hope and we're very confident that this is the beginning of something that's very exciting on Netflix. — Jeph Loeb

In recent years, I've been writing because I'm fortunate enough to work in the world of food television, to travel and taste and learn about cooking from the best chefs in the business. — Ted Allen

There's no mistaking the fact that some of the best longform fiction out there now is in American television. 'The Wire' and 'Deadwood' and 'The Sopranos.' — Kevin Barry

Enough, a person might say, if that person lived in the civilized world, the world of movies and television and fair play and decent restraint. But Reacher didn't live there. He lived in a world where you don't start fights but you sure as hell finish them, and you don't lose them either, and he was the inheritor of generations of hard-won wisdom that said the best way to lose them was to assume they were over when they weren't yet. — Lee Child

Frank Halford was a master at the school and remembers Adams as "very tall even then, and popular. He wrote an end-of-term play when Doctor Who had just started on television. He called it 'Doctor Which.' " Many years later, Adams did write scripts for Doctor Who. He describes Halford as an inspirational teacher who is still a support. "He once gave me ten out of ten for a story, which was the only time he did throughout his long school career. And even now, when I have a dark night of the soul as a writer and think that I can't do this anymore, the thing that I reach for is not the fact that I have had best-sellers or huge advances. It is the fact that Frank Halford once gave me ten out of ten, and at some fundamental level I must be able to do it. — Douglas Adams

I'm never at my best on television. There's a row of cameras between you and the audience, and it's very weird, very confusing. — Shania Twain

I'm on record saying that HBO is the best television company in the world, and I believe they are. I think they absolutely understand how to make television that is really, really vital and interesting and visceral, and all the things that television really should be. — James Purefoy

As a mentalist, perhaps only Orson Wells was in Jason's league. After a career in television, Randal has my endorsement. He's simply the best I've ever seen! — Merv Griffin

I hit Damian Fuller with a left hook that left him laid out for 30-45 minutes. They brought oxygen to him, they couldn't wake him up, he was out cold. The television station kept having to take breaks, he was out so long. It was unbelievable. That was the best one-shot I've ever done in my life. — Diego Corrales

While I was fighting, I heard other people speaking in the name of freedom, and the more they defended this unique right, the more enslaved they seemed to be to their parents' wishes, to a marriage in which they had promised to stay with the other person "for the rest of their lives," to the bathroom scales, to their diet, to half-finished projects, to lovers to whom they were incapable of saying "No" or "It's over," to weekends when they were obliged to have lunch with people they didn't even like. Slaves to luxury, to the appearance of luxury, to the appearance of the appearance of luxury. Slaves to a life they had not chosen, but which they had decided to live because someone had managed to convince them that it was all for the best. And so their identical days and nights passed, days and nights in which adventure was just a word in a book or an image on the television that was always on, and whenever a door opened, they would say: "I'm not interested. I'm not in the mood. — Paulo Coelho

'Cosmos' wouldn't deserve its place in primetime evening network television were it not a landscape on which compelling stories were told. People, when they watch TV in the evening, want to see stories, and science simply tells the best stories. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I seem to watch less and less television. The best thing in 'Downton Abbey' is Penelope Wilton. She is always worth the watch. — John Hurt

Molded salads are best served in situations where they have little or no competition ... Like television, gelatin is too often a vehicle for limp leftovers that couldn't make it anywhere else. — Peg Bracken

Television is what it's always been. The best of times and the worst of times at the same time. — Gary David Goldberg

The point is that television does not reveal who the best man is. In fact, television makes impossible the determination of who is better than whom, if we mean by 'better' such things as more capable in negotiation, more imaginative in executive skill, more knowledgeable about international affairs, more understanding of the interrelations of economic systems, and so on. The reason has, almost entirely, to do with 'image.' But not because politicians are preoccupied with presenting themselves in the best possible light. After all, who isn't? It is a rare and deeply disturbed person who does not wish to project a favorable image. But television gives image a bad name. For on television the politician does not so much offer the audience an image of himself, as offer himself as an image of the audience. And therein lies one of the most powerful influences of the television commercial on political discourse. — Neil Postman

Television, for me, is great because I love to act, every day. I love to work that muscle. I love to learn, and I love to be able to just do what I love. It's when I'm at my best. So, I love TV for that reason because it's every day. — Jennifer Love Hewitt

When I did my first price guide in 1979, publications weren't interested in mentioning it. Now I get phone calls weekly if not daily from publications and television shows who want to know what's hot, how to get started in antiques, and the best way to buy antiques. — Judith Miller

That makes entertaining television. That is the circus of American Idol . We go for the very, very best and the very, very worst. It's the boring people that we don't want to see on television. — Nigel Lythgoe

I always think a successful television series is the best job because it gives you community, it doesn't demand temporary insanity the way movies do, and you can be almost a normal person. — James L. Brooks

What we witnessed with the death of Kennedy was the triumph of television; what we saw with his assassination, and with his funeral, was the beginning of television's dominance of our culture
for television is at its most solemnly self-serving and at its mesmerizing best when it is depicting the untimely deaths of the chosen and the golden. It is as witness to the butchery of heroes in their prime
and of all holy-seeming innocents
that televisions achieves its deplorable greatness. — John Irving

What made it harder to stomach was the fact that the pilot of the helicopter with the television cameras was particularly keen to do his job to the best of his ability by coming as close as he could to get pictures of me, even though he was almost mowing the number off my back with his rotor-blades. Obviously, the turbulence he caused pushed enough wind at me to slow me down a fair bit. Two or three times I came close to crashing and shook my fist at him. Guimard was beside himself with rage. So was I. In normal circumstances, if all the stages had been run off in the usual way, or even with the bare minimum of morality, the time trial would only have been of secondary importance because the race would have been decided well before. And I would have won my first Giro d'Italia in the most logical way possible. Instead of which my chest burned with pain: the pain you feel at injustice. — Laurent Fignon

The best thing ever done is just to sit on my computer and to watch there television, I decide when to stop and when to start. I decide what to be and what not to be. — Deyth Banger

Best-selling horror fiction is indeed necessarily conservative because it must entertain a large number of readers. It's like network television. I'm your local cable access station. — Thomas Ligotti

Some of the most interesting questions needing to be asked today can best be asked on television, or on stage, and they can be wonderful, great dramas, but they won't necessarily be blockbusters. — Julie Walters

We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past
the portrayals of family life on such television programs as "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" and all the rest. — Richard Louv

Listen, if you are an entrepreneur who is passionate about your product, but you never ask anyone to buy what you are selling, it will never get sold. Sure, there's a possibility that you can deliver your best sales pitch in your best Sunday suit and they will still say no. But so what? Do you know how many times I've been told no for movie scripts, television shows, and comedy specials? A whole hell of lot more times than I heard yes. — Steve Harvey