Quotes & Sayings About Not Watching Tv

Let's not forget The Things They Do To Make Themselves Happy That Actually Make Them Miserable. This is an infinite list. It includes - shopping, watching TV, taking the better job, getting the bigger house, writing a semi-autobiographical novel, educating their young, making their skin look mildly less old and harboring a vague desire to believe there might be a meaning to it all. — Matt Haig

I grew up going to the movies, not watching them on television, so I'm still a bit resistant to TV as a medium. — Kenneth Lonergan

Twinkle the Destroyer wasn't alone, it seemed. There were more gnomes than I thought. Pip the Bringer of Pain, Chauncey the Devourer of Souls, Cuddly the Inexplicable, Gnoman Polanski, Pith the Bitey, Gnome ChompSky, Gnomie Malone, Chuck the Norriser- the list went on.
'It's like a mishmash of violent imagery, TV, an political references'
'I told you they like TV. I'm not sure the understand everything they see, though, so they don't fully grasp what they're stealing their names from. Like, I think Gnome ChompSky just thought it sounded tough and Chuck the Norriser came from watching too many episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger. They believe Chuck Norris is a demigod'
'Who doesn't? — Lish McBride

The hours spent viewing TV are hours not available for actively participating in the real world, or playing, or being involved with friends and family. Watching television is an individual activity that tends to discourage interaction with others; as viewing time increases, family communication time decreases. As family communication decreases, people grow more distant from each other and may even forget how to carry on a good conversation. — Louise Hart

You ever look for the remote control, but you can't find it, so you just decide, "Ah, guess I'm not watching TV. I'm not gonna take two steps and turn it on myself. I'll go to the gym if I'm going to work out." — Jim Gaffigan

People are playing games on their TV, young men are, and people are shopping ... they are not watching their news channels, but they are using their TVs for other things. — Rupert Murdoch

Why do you watch TV shows - and keep watching them - if you don't like them? Terence asked.
Simple: Some days, all you have is gazing upon horror, and the small comfort of being surprised that it is not yours. — Colson Whitehead

We get a lot of calls where the person is murdered at home, but is not found for a period of time. And so the animals have already started to take the body apart because they haven't been fed in that period. So your evidence is being chewed up by the family pet.
I tell you - Dogs are more loyal than cats. Cats will wait only a certain period of time and they'll start chewing on you. Dogs will wait a day or two before they just can't take the starving anymore. So, keep that in mind when choosing a pet.
You know how a cat just stares at you, maybe at the top of the TV, from across the room? That's because they're watching to see if you're gonna stop breathing. — Connie Fletcher

Court TV. I can't stop watching it. I am absolutely obsessed! If I'm not reading a book or spending time with my husband, my friends or my dog, I am watching Court TV. — Debra Messing

The secret of doing well on TV is to understand that it's not too important. A lot of people watching doesn't change anything. — Jack Germond

I was not seduced by the celebrity side of acting. However, as a British girl watching a lot of American TV, I saw that there was a whole world of opportunity in the States that I wanted to discover. — Carmen Ejogo

This whole thing about reality television to me is really indicative of America saying we're not satisfied just watching television, we want to star in our own TV shows. We want you to discover us and put us in your own TV show, and we want television to be about us, finally. — Steven Spielberg

Don't sit there watching TV without your glasses! Do you want to ruin your eyes?!"
"My opthalmologist says that not wearing glasses cannot hurt the eyes even if those glasses are badly needed for adequate vision."
"What does your opthalmologist think of the foreign situation? — Charles M. Schulz

So what are you studying at school?" I asked, watching the TV and not Cooper as he still played gently with a lock of my damp hair.
"Pre-law."
Glancing at him, I frowned then forced myself to stop. "You want to be a lawyer?"
"Nope. Hate lawyers. Hate laws. Hate it all, but I'm the only one of my siblings with an IQ over shitfaced so the burden is on me to be the lawyer."
"I don't get it. Tell your giant brain to dumb it down a little. — Bijou Hunter

I'm probably not creative or talented enough to create an especially compelling piece of content, but I really do enjoy watching a great movie or TV show. — Chad Hurley

I know I'm an actor, but I'm not at all a believer in people watching a lot of TV. I've never had television in my home. — Alexandra Paul

The future of America may or may not bring forth a black President, a woman President, a Jewish President, but it most certainly always will have a suburban President. A President whose senses have been defined by the suburbs, where lakes and public baths mutate into back yards and freeways, where walking means driving, where talking means telephoning, where watching means TV, and where living means real, imitation life. — Arthur Kroker

It's not a disability, it's life. We are complicated creatures with larger matters on our plate than tip calculation. I grew up watching TV with my mother while she diagnosed the characters as having hyperactivity or attention-deficit disorder. I rolled my eyes and wondered why there weren't any stupid kids anymore. Why did there have to be something to explain everyone? Were the cave people on Ritalin? I didn't think so. — Sloane Crosley

Some people in the town did not seem to care about the festival and were watching football on TV. The players were dotted about in neon green. They looked unreal, the way they might be seen by the forgotten man in the moon and the rabbit if they were watching the floodlit pitch forlornly from above. — Olivia Sudjic

We have to keep our fans watching not just at home on TV but here at the racetrack too. This is where you sell people on the speed and excitement of racing. — Jeff Gordon

When you play a show or festival, people know what they're getting; they want it. Then you're thrown onto a show where people are watching TV in their houses, and whether they ask for it or not, we're being played in front of them. There's a lot of negative feedback. — Tyler Joseph

A generation of children is not only being raised indoors, but is being confined to even smaller spaces. Jane Clark, a University of Maryland professor of kinesiology ... calls them "containerized kids"
they spend more and more time in car seats, high chairs, and even baby seats for watching TV. When small children go outside, they're often placed in containers
strollers
and pushed by walking or jogging parents ... Most kid-containerizing is done for safety concerns, but the long term health of these children is compromised. (35) — Richard Louv

I was watching Batman, the TV show, on TV Land, on the cable. And Robin said to Batman, Golly, Batman! Why is the Joker so evil!? And Batman said, Careful, Robin. The criminal mind sees the world through a prism the solid citizen dare not peer through. Batman has a more nuanced worldview than the president. — Dana Gould

Sometimes - more often than not - he thought that Rachel and her classmates were just playing at being caring and open-minded, at noticing that there was a world wider than them, their college, their peers. They'd experience poverty in two-hour chunks twice a month. like it was a movie they were going to see or a TV show they were watching, something they'd click off or walk out of when it was done, something they sat through just so they could talk about it with everyone else who'd seen it and had something to say. — Jennifer Weiner

I'm not saying don't do the work you got, but instead of this two hours of watching TV at the hotel lobby or this three hours of sitting under the pier and reading comic books or worrying about what you're doing ... what value do you have? Can you read? There are people out there who can't read - go read to them. — Andy Andrews

TV does not care about you or what happens to you. It's downright bad for your health now, and that's not a far-out concept. I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health. — Tom Petty

Relaxing is for the other guy. I may be sitting in front of the TV, but I'm not watching it unless I think there is something I can learn from it. I'm thinking about things I can use in my business and the TV is just there. — Mark Cuban

Cooking, to me, it's kind of therapeutic. It's completely different from music as well. I'm not amazing at it, but I can cook myself a good meal. And I'm not just saying this, but anytime I'm on the bus or at home, I'm watching Food Network or cooking on TV just 'cause it's interesting to me. — Phillip Phillips

It's a trap I've fallen into earlier in my career - trying to be liked. Don't do it. When I watch TV and I see someone trying to make me like them, acting cute or quirky or goofy, I'm not impressed. Don't act like America's watching you. Just latch onto your character. Characters are flawed. Be unlikeable. Be flawed. Be a person. — Nathan Fillion

According to news reports, members of the sect believed in an assortment of pseudoreligious and paranormal ideas, including resurrection (obviously), astrology, and psychic powers. They were also avid watchers of paranormal shows on TV. This of course does not imply that watching The X-Files leads to suicide, just like millions of people playing Grand Theft Auto video games are not automatically turned into criminals on a rampage. — Massimo Pigliucci

Stop watching me," she'd say all the time, a little smile on her face because she was watching me too.
"I can't help it," I'd reply "I'm fascinated by you, in love with you."
"Well, go be fascinated and in love with the TV, I'm trying to sort things out, it's not easy with you watching. — Dorothy Koomson

It's my husband. I think - I think he's a zombie."
I smiled. "Believe it or not, I get this one a lot. Can you describe his behavior? Why do you think he's a zombie?"
She huffed. "He doesn't do anything! He sits on the sofa all day watching TV and that's it. — Carrie Vaughn

Jasper, on the other hand, never saw a chair or sofa he didn't think he had the right to get up on. He sits up and stares straight ahead, sometimes watching TV, acting like a person. His favorite show, of course, is Wheel of Fortune. Followed by The Five and football. He particularly likes it if there's a person already sitting in the chair. He clambers up and will always find - or make - room to sit next to whoever is sitting, no matter how small the chair is. And this is not a small dog. — Dana Perino

Why do so many Americans say they want their children to watch less TV, yet continue to expand the opportunities for them to watch it? More important, why do so many people no longer consider the physical world worth watching? The highway's edges may not be postcard perfect. But for a century, children's early understanding of how cities and nature fit together was gained from the backseat: the empty farmhouse at the edge of the subdivision; the variety of architecture, here and there; the woods and fields and water beyond the seamy edges
all that was and still is available to the eye. This was the landscape that we watched as children. It was our drive-by movie. — Richard Louv

Now, all America sits in front of television sets and those television sets exude, I am sorry to say, a considerable amount of radioactive material. It's not huge, you know, but it's enough so that people who have made a habit of watching TV ... get the TV radiation. — L. Ron Hubbard

If your heart takes more pleasure in reading novels, or watching TV, or going to the movies, or talking to friends, rather than just sitting alone with God and embracing Him, sharing His cares and His burdens, weeping and rejoicing with Him, then how are you going to handle forever and ever in His presence ... ? You'd be bored to tears in heaven, if you're not ecstatic about God now! — Keith Green

Not watching TV gets me in a lot of trouble in my household because my wife and daughter have a lot of shows they like to watch. — John Jeremiah Sullivan

I couldn't tell you what was happening on the TV screen. My eyes saw the pictures, but could not register what was happening, especially since my eyes kept falling on Luke. I knew that he knew that I was watching him because he grinned and threw a cookie at me without taking his eyes off the screen. — L.D. Davis

Just as you can't become a marathon runner by watching marathons on TV, likewise for science, you have to go through the thought processes of doing science and not just watch your instructor do it. — Eric Mazur

Something economically changed. It used to be that you needed 20 million people to watch a TV show for it to be a hit. Now, with just a few million people watching, you're considered very successful, for a lot of these streaming services, or cable channels. Now, that allows people to do much more creatively ambitious work, because it's not lowest common denominator. — Judd Apatow

Believe it or not, I don't own a TV. Crazy huh? I'm not a big movie-goer either. I just feel like I'm watching work. I am always outside and couldn't care less about what's on TV these days. — Jeffrey Donovan

Why do I read? To know that I am alive. To know that hope and humanity exist in the world. To remember that some people spend years of their life, not watching reality TV or pornography, but trying to create something meaningful and lasting and beautiful. I read to know what is possible. — Gea Haff

Watching television is another high-risk situation. This might seem counterintuitive, since people often look to TV as an escape - something to take their mind off things. But here's the problem: Most programs are simply not interesting or engaging enough to fully occupy the mind, so it's all too easy for our thoughts to wander off when we're sitting in front of the tube. Add to this the fact that depression impairs our ability to concentrate - including the ability to stay focused on a TV program - and it's no surprise that watching television is often a recipe for disaster. It's one of the most effective ways to usher in an extended bout of rumination. — Steve Ilardi

There were a lot of lessons of production to be learned. On the page, the biggest thing you learn on any TV show is how to write to your cast. You write the show at the beginning with certain voices in your head and you have a way that you think the characters will be, and then you have an actor go out there, and you start watching dailies and episodes. Then, you start realizing what they can do and what they can't do, what they're good at and what they're not so good at, how they say things and what fits in their mouth, and you start tailoring the voice of the show to your cast. — Ronald D. Moore

Reading is a huge effort for many people, a bore for others, and, believe it or not, many people prefer watching TV. — Hugh Mackay

I've been reading a lot of books on history, and watching a lot of educational TV. Wikipedia too, even though it is not reliable. — Vir Das

I was thinking about watching a movie or something," said Catherine.
"That sounds great," said Ted. "Penelope, do you still have that TV?"
"Yes," said Penelope. Was he inviting her? She would make it clear that she was not attending. "You can use it. I think there is a parade in Boston that I wanted to go to."
Ted started laughing.
"Penelope, don't be ridiculous. If we are watching TV in your room, then you have to come! I don't think there is a parade happening anywhere. — Rebecca Harrington

I know you're not supposed to have TV in your room, but I like watching a little. I need something mindless. — Rebecca Romijn

I'm not a reality TV star. I pride myself on witnessing, watching people, studying people, and being able to recreate that and create a human being. — Janet Montgomery

In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. — Robert M. Pirsig

I found out a long time ago that if I indulged by stuffing my face with great food, lying about reading books and watching TV or talking on the phone, I was not a happy camper. — Raquel Welch

I'm not against watching myself, but I miss a lot of it. I've got two little kids who we don't let watch TV. — William H. Macy

The problem with playing hide-and-seek with your sister is that sometimes she gets bored and stops looking for you.And there you are - under the couch, in the closet, wedged behind the lilac tree - and you don't want to give up,because maybe she's just biding her time. But maybe she's wandered off. ... Maybe she's downstairs watching TV and eating the rest of the Pringles.You wait. You wait until you forget that you're waiting, until you forget that there's anything to you beyond stillnessand quiet; an ant crawls over your knee, and you don't flinch. And it doesn't matter now whether she's coming for you - the hiding is enough. (You win when no one finds you, even if they're not looking.)When you break from behind the tree, it's because you want to. It's the first breath after a long dive. Branches snapunder your feet, and the world is hotter and brighter.
Ready or not, here I come. Here I come, ready or not. — Rainbow Rowell

I think many years from now, people will still watch television, though it will probably be 150 inches wide. What will change is the ability to get 'CSI' not only on TV but also on the Internet, even watching it in a foreign country as it's playing in the U.S. — Leslie Moonves

September 11 The morning of September 11, 2001, I was in Los Angeles. Like many people, I could not believe what I was watching on TV. It was heartbreaking to see all the misery and even more heartbreaking because it was happening to New York, which will always hold a special place in my heart. At the time, my younger brother, Kashi, was working near the Twin Towers, so my first instinct was to call and make sure he was okay. Once that had been confirmed I drove around Los Angeles visiting my family, in shock. As the — Maz Jobrani

So I'm on a little one-man crusade to bring the obituary closer to the front of the paper. Let's sing a bit louder about the unsung. Rather than spending all our time watching stupid people doing stupid things and being filmed by other stupid people on reality TV shows, why don't we spend a few minutes each day reading about good people doing good things? I'm not being a hippy. It's just that we've got to improve ourselves as a species or we are absolutely doomed. — Billy Connolly

When your culture comes from watching TV every day, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities. None of that happened where I was. You're almost taught to realize it's not for you. — Trent Reznor

There was never any peace. There were never any quiet, family moments. They were always working. All of them, all the time. For some reason Michael saw an image of the sitting room at the house in Yorkshire. The TV was on, but there was no one watching it. The terrier was polishing off a plate of dinner that had been abandoned on the arm of the couch. That was the way their lives were. They hadn't sat down to a meal once since they arrived in Scotland. They were a dealer's yard, not a family. — Kate Thompson

That which interests most people leaves me without any interest at all. This includes a list of things such as: social dancing, riding roller coasters, going to zoos, picnics, movies, planetariums, watching tv, baseball games; going to funerals, weddings, parties, basketball games, auto races, poetry readings, museums, rallies, demonstrations, protests, children's plays, adult plays ... I am not interested in beaches, swimming, skiing, Christmas, New Year's, the 4th of July, rock music, world history, space exploration, pet dogs, soccer, cathedrals and great works of Art. How can a man who is interested in almost nothing write about anything? Well, I do. I write and I write about what's left over: a stray dog walking down the street, a wife murdering her husband, the thoughts and feelings of a rapist as he bites into a hamburger sandwich; life in the factory, life in the streets and rooms of the poor and mutilated and the insane, crap like that, I write a lot of crap like that — Charles Bukowski

Watching violence in movies or in TV programs stimulates the spectators to imitate what they see much more than if seen live or on TV news. In movies, violence is filmed with perfect illumination, spectacular scenery, and in slow motion, making it even romantic. However, in the news, the public has a much better perception of how horrible violence can be, and it is used with objectives that do not exist in the movies. — Steven Spielberg

I did not grow up watching much TV and film. I had a very, very, very, very, very, very church family, and a lot of, like, secular stuff was not around my house. — Pauley Perrette

Downhill's the future of the sport. Cross-country's not geared for TV. Some fat guy watching it with a beer in one hand and potato chips in the other is going to say, I can do that. America likes to see people crash. — Missy Giove

MESSAGE + MISSION = MOVEMENT

Its not that you want to be on TV or the radio or in a magazine. If no one watched or listened or read, you wouldn't care about those mediums.

What you want is an audience.

You want to be seen and heard. You have a message to share. That said, the world has giving you your own TV channel (YouTube and any other video platform). The world has given you a radio station and even hosts (podcasts). The world has given you your own magazine and newspaper (websites, blogs, etc).

YOU ARE SEEN AND HEARD. YOU ARE ALREADY STANDING ON THE STAGE.

NOW WHAT?

We are watching and listening. — Richie Norton

My first few years as TV critic, I would go to parties and people (usually older Posties or ex-Posties who seemed to pride themselves on not watching very much television) would take me by the arm and insist that I watch this show they'd recently starting watching on DVD, about drug dealers in Baltimore. — Hank Stuever

My siblings and I, we were raised on TV and films. Not a day went by that we weren't watching one of three movies - 'Caddyshack,' 'Animal House,' 'Beverly Hills Cop' - on rotation. Our comedy, our personalities were set watching 'Sesame Street': these really sort of wacky, Jim Henson-y characters. — Teddy Sears

TV drama - not always, but on the whole - were pretty appalling and very secondary, too. No one expected it to be like watching a movie; that was the point. But I think when you start watching 'Vikings,' it is like watching a movie - you're taken somewhere else. — Michael Hirst

Despite the impression you may have from watching too much TV, movies are not about reproducing reality. They're about telling stories. — Seth Shostak

Being on the road, the Internet enables me to interact with people in some way. It's not so much interacting with my fans - it's about doing something with what I have. I have my camera and I have my computer, and if I have some spare time, rather than watching some mindless bullshit pop-idol program on TV, why not show people my pictures and try and discuss things that I feel are important? — Lily Allen

You're watching us and you don't realize how much makeup and how much lighting is involved when we look good. We have a lot of help where we are. I don't think that it's healthy for young girls to be looking at these beauty magazines and watching TV and these shows and thinking [that's the standard] there's more European attitude - you look at French film, Spanish film, they're a little more open to quirks and human nature. That we're not all symmetrical, not all the same shape we need more of that. — Natalie Dormer

I don't watch every fight; I am not huge on watching fights on TV. Because I did it my whole life. But I do watch the big fights. I follow the little fights too, sometimes; I just don't have to watch every single fight that happens. — Micky Ward

Tom was not. "Seems to me," he said, "that she's at her drawing board evenings more than she's watching TV, and that you're the one who uses the sitting room for — Barbara Delinsky

I like doing the crossword puzzle in the New York Times, not watching E! on TV. — Paula Cole

I'm not interested in the TV much. I quit watching the news a couple years ago and my outlook on life has gotten a whole lot better. — Tom Petty

Aunt Loretta has something that maybe you could call class. It's not the made-up kind that Grandma has, fake pearls and Sunday hats, but something that comes to you as if you were born to the king and queen. Aunt Loretta understands better than Grandma that reading a big book is more classy than wearing fake pearls watching TV. — Heidi W. Durrow

Play with your kids. Limit their TV time. Get outdoors and chase them around. Wrestle with them. Walk the dog. Go bike riding. The reality is that your kids are not stupid, and they know when they are overweight Start walking the dog after dinner instead of watching TV. You don't want them going on the Web to find ways to lose weight. That's when you'll find them eating tissue paper because they read that a supermodel did it. — Jillian Michaels

Little things like making clothes, baking bread, cooking, even useless things like bird-watching, sketching flowers, playing guitar in the home - that sort of time is gone. And the time we have? We're so exhausted, we want to let ourselves get sucked in to the escape world of TV. I'm speaking from experience; I'm not above all this. — Tom Hodgkinson

But they could be frightening, too. "Watching Watergate in Archie Bunker Country," said the cover of the June 18 issue of New York magazine. It began with the author, top-drawer trend journalist Gail Sheehy, recording what happened when the proprietor of Terry's Bar in Astoria, Queens, asked his patrons if he might tune the bar's TV to the hearings. Nine men cried "Forget it!" "The majority called for Popeye cartoons. But Terry couldn't find a channel that wasn't polluted with the 'search for unvarnished truth.' They had no choice. Television was suppressing their freedom not to know." These ironworkers, sandhogs, elevator operators, and beer truck drivers said things like this: that Ted Kennedy "killed a broad" ("Now there was a mountain, and they made a molehill — Rick Perlstein

One night I couldn't sleep. It was like 2:00 in the morning. I was thinking, 'What can I do?' I'm watching TV. I'm like, 'Let me do something else.' I'm not going to fall asleep for a few hours. What are my hobbies? There was the masturbation option. I skipped that because just knowing my kids are down the hall I felt psychotic. So, I went with watching more TV. I couldn't come up with anything. I was going, 'God, read a book.' Then I was like this, 'Where do I keep the books?' I've got nothing to do but watch TV. — Adam Sandler

What's the point in being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? How very odd, to believe God gave you life, and yet not think that life asks more of you than watching TV. — John Green

I was watching TV at age 9 or 10, and my mom said that I came from the front room and I told her that I want to act. And she said if you want to do this at 18, then you can. It was a very simple story, yet, I do not even remember the conversation that I had with my mother. Until she reminded me of the story many years later. — Derek Luke

TV was entertainment of the last resort. There was nothing on during the day in the summer other than game shows and soap operas. Besides, a TV-watching child was considered available for chores: take out the trash, clean your room, pick up that mess, fold those towels, mow the lawn ... the list was endless. We all became adept at chore-avoidance. Staying out of sight was a reliable strategy. Drawing or painting was another: to my mother, making art trumped making beds. A third choir-avoidance technique was to read. A kid with his or her nose in a book is a kid who is not fighting, yelling, throwing, breaking things, bleeding, whining, or otherwise creating a Mom-size headache. Reading a book was almost like being invisible - a good thing for all concerned. — Pete Hautman

Watching TV on your own is not very inspiring. But meeting people is where you get new ideas and get things done. — Richard Rogers

Because, George thought as she sat there with her eyes closed back before Christmas in Mrs Rock's self-consciously comfortable chair in the counselling office, how can it be that there's an advert on TV with dancing bananas unpeeling themselves in it and teabags doing a dance, and her mother will never see that advert?
How can that advert exist and her mother not exist in the world?
She didn't say it out loud, though, because there wasn't a point.
It isn't about saying.
It is about the hole which will form in the roof through which the cold will intensify and after which the structure of the house will begin to shift, like it ought, and through which George will be able to lie every night in bed watching the black sky. — Ali Smith

After a pretty amazing year that included more wins than I thought possible, I rang in 2013 by watching the Times Square ball drop on TV ... and then heading directly to bed. It might not have been the typical New Year's Eve for a 21-year-old, but what can I say? It was a training night! — Ashley Wagner

Whether or not you're aware of it or not, you're taking the information you get from watching TV and putting it in your brain. — Stephanie Beatriz

I'm sitting in front of the TV, watching Jerry Springer, and it makes me think of how many mad people there are in the world, and whether everyone is mad deep down, they just pretend they're not, and it's the people in asylums or on Jerry Springer who are the honest ones. I have a notebook and a chewed-up pen, and I'm trying to think of a topic for the Youth Issues speech. Mrs Thomas says she thinks I have a lot to say, but I don't. Nothing I can put words to anyway. I could talk about bullying, or alcoholism, but I don't think I could speak about that out loud, it's too real, and it'd be like I was standing up there naked. More than naked. It would be like my skin was all peeled off and I was just standing there with my heart all bloody and thumping in my rib cage for everyone to see. — Megan Jacobson

In their studies, students who successfully acquired one positive habit reported less stress; less impulsive spending; better dietary habits; decreased alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine consumption; fewer hours watching TV; and even fewer dirty dishes. Sustain the discipline long enough on one habit, and not only does it become easier, but so do other things as well. It's why those with the right habits seem to do better than others. They're doing the most important thing regularly and, as a result, everything else is easier. — Gary Keller

For all of the information on the hazards of time on screen, research by Veerman and colleagues (2012) might be the most metric. They found that people whose life pattern includes watching TV 6 hours a day can expect to survive 4.8 years less than people that do not watch TV. They reckon that "every single hour of TV viewed after the age of 25 reduces the viewer's life expectancy by 21.8 minutes! They conclude that time viewing TV may be comparable to other major chronic disease factors such as obesity and inactivity in risk of loss of life. Of course, this was research done down under in Australia. All things considered, that might leave Americans at even greater risk for lifespans shortened by time on screen. — Joyce Shaffer

Then there is the curse of multi-tasking. Doing two things at once seems so clever, so efficient, so modern. And yet what it often means is doing two things not very well. Like many people, I read the paper while watching TV - and find that I get less out of both. — Carl Honore

I traveled and worked with amazing actors, like Andy Garcia, Alec Baldwin, Brendan Fraser, Forest Whitaker, Lee Pace. It was this great learning experience. And then, I started watching a lot of television. I was always in these foreign countries and I would get TV shows on DVD, and I started to realize that all of the amazing roles for women were on television. I was spoiled by Buffy because I thought that was the way it was everywhere, and it's not. — Sarah Michelle Gellar

Really, I want to get this individualistic-thing down. I want to walk across the football field alone without looking like the last one picked to play soccer. I never was a cheerleader, I was a slut on my own with the thinking that if a tree has a good time and no one's around to hear it, it's not a slut. But sometimes you do need another tree around to double-dare you, or else you might end up doing nothing but watching TV when no one's around. — Erika Lopez

There's no such thing as 'too much TV,' unless we're all spending more and not watching more. — Ted Sarandos

I have a hard time watching myself! Usually I do the work, and then I leave it. So I pretend like I'm not on TV every week. — Lauren London

Grandma Natasha was sitting in the tent watching public service announcements on TV. They were showing a blond model in a bikini doing the backstroke in a river of blood flowing along Arlozorov Street. "She's not a real blonde," Grandma Natasha grumbled, pointing at the model. "She has it bleached. — Etgar Keret

I love the cinema, but I'm not a fascist about it. I've had some of my best experiences watching things on TV. But if I were Stalin, I would force everyone to be in the theater. — Lenny Abrahamson

Why are we so confused about what police really do? The obvious reason is that in the popular culture of the last fifty years or so, police have become almost obsessive objects of imaginative identification in popular culture. It has come to the point that it's not at all unusual for a citizen in a contemporary industrialized democracy to spend several hours a day reading books, watching movies, or viewing TV shows that invite them to look at the world from a police point of view, and to vicariously participate in their exploits. And these imaginary police do, indeed, spend almost all of their time fighting violent crime, or dealing with its consequences. — David Graeber

The last time I saw Dad alive, he was in the hospital. He was watching 'Hell Drivers,' a crummy B-movie about truckers, on TV and reading the 'Daily Record.' This seems scarcely believable, but I actually said, 'Dad, you've not got long to go - don't you think you should be imbibing the culture a bit more?' — John Niven

Doing TV is great, but TV is for starring on, not for watching. — Natasha Leggero

watching TV and playing solitaire is not a proper life. It's not living. It's killing time, and that's hardly the same. You start asking yourself too many questions when your day is reduced to these rote activities that accomplish nothing. You start to wonder — Catherine Ryan Hyde

If you're watching a film on your television, is it no longer a film because you're not watching it in a theatre? If you watch a TV show on your iPad, is it no longer a TV show? The device and the length are irrelevant; the labels are useless, except perhaps to agents and managers and lawyers, who use these labels to conduct business deals. — Kevin Spacey