Talk Radio Quotes & Sayings

As Al Franken has demonstrated, liberals give lousy talk radio. — L. Neil Smith

I wonder if this reason is partly geographical, that talk radio is so much more successful in North America than in Britain? People who are very remote - I'm thinking of Newfoundland - feel very connected though the radio. — John Gimlette

Billy Joel was on the radio, singing, "I love you just the way you are." Big talk, Myron mused, when you've been married to Christie Brinkley. — Harlan Coben

Of all radio program forms, the radio talk is the hardest to write, to give, and to make interesting and acceptable to the listening public. The first inclination of almost everyone, in turning on the radio and finding someone talking, is to switch the dial immediately until a music program is found. That is done almost as unconsciously as breathing. — Judith C. Waller

From talk radio to insult radio wasn't really that much of a leap ... — Leonore Fleischer

HAM radio is very inexpensive, it is nearly unlimited and free to use. The only limitation is that you can only talk for five minutes to any given person because the station gets out of range within that time. — Charles Simonyi

The most important thing in human relationship is conversation.but people don't talk anymore,they don't sit down to talk and listen.They go to theatre,the cinema,watch television,listen to the radio,read books but they almost never talk.(pg114) — Paulo Coelho

I'm thinking of starting my own talk radio show. I'll spout simplistic opinions for hours on end, ridicule anyone who disagrees with me, and generally foster divisiveness, cynicism, and a lower level of public dialog! — Bill Watterson

In the 1920s and 30s, when Radio Shack was young, a much earlier generation of nerds swarmed into these tiny shops to talk excitedly about building radios and other transmission devices. You might say that Radio Shack helped define gadget culture for four generations, from radio whizzes up to smartphone dorks. — Annalee Newitz

He had an AM radio playing a conservative talk show. The host was making some very interesting statements about the president. I don't usually pay much attention to politics, but from what the man said, I had to believe that sometime in the recent past the laws regarding sedition must have changed. — Jeff Lindsay

And there was that letter from the Bramleys - that really made me feel good. You don't find people like the Bramleys now; radio, television and the motorcar have carried the outside world into the most isolated places so that the simple people you used to meet on the lonely farms are rapidly becoming like people anywhere else. There are still a few left, of course - old folk who cling to the ways of their fathers and when I come across any of them I like to make some excuse to sit down and talk with them and listen to the old Yorkshire words and expressions which have almost disappeared. — James Herriot

She would talk to him in the car, ask him something, then turn on the radio and find her question answered by the lyrics of a song; pick up a book and turn to a random page, to find the words that were exactly what she needed to hear. There is no such thing as coincidence, she would think, blowing a kiss of thanks to the heavens. — Jane Green

Scandal is great entertainment because it allows people to feel contempt, a moral emotion that gives feelings of moral superiority while asking nothing in return. With contempt you don't need to right the wrong (as with anger) or flee the scene (as with fear or disgust). And the best of all, contempt is made to share. Stories about the moral failings of others are among the most common kinds of gossip, they are a stable of talk radio, and they offer a ready way for people to show that they share a common moral orientation. — Jonathan Haidt

New forms of media - first movies, then television, talk radio and now the Internet - tend to challenge traditional codes of conduct. They flout convention, shake up the status quo and sometimes provoke outrage. — Willow Bay

I think if you've got a good idea it will stand out in one of the different mediums. For example, something might happen to me today and it could be something to talk about tomorrow on the radio, or I can write about it, or perhaps it will be best suited to telly. — Danny Wallace

We're in Des Moines, Iowa today, were in Omaha, Nebraska yesterday and Boise, Idaho the day before. When we landed at the airport in Boise, from Portland, Oregon this lady from our plane came up from behind as we walked down the terminal. She approached me and said "Taylor, I just love your song and want to wish you great things in you career." I looked and her and said "Well, THANK YOU!" and then said " who did you talk to?". (and then pointed to my Mom and the Label rep we were traveling with) I was convinced that one of them had talked to the lady on the plane and told her about me and my song. The lady said "neither one" and then I said "Well, how did you know who I was?" and the lady said "because I listen to radio and I watched your video". This was the first time someone had actually KNOWN who I was and MY NAME. wow. I just walked over and hugged her, and said ... "You're the first person who's ever done that, thankyou." It was an amazing moment to remember, and I always will. — Taylor Swift

Looking back on the event, I find myself thinking there are three approaches to journalism represented here. One is the "cool" approach of traditional journalism, including network broadcasting in which NPR is no exception. One is the "hot" approach of talk radio, which has since expanded to TV sports networks and now Fox TV. The third is the engaged approach of weblogging. — David "Doc" Searls

Once I learned how to talk, personally, by myself to any number of people, which means do radio without talking to anyone in particular on the air - I just found that my brain became very free to engage in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style of doing what I do. — Marc Maron

Conservatives don't want to read good, smart books. They mostly want to read Fox and talk radio hosts writing about presidents. — Alex Pareene

Recently I've been participating in radio and television talk programs doing broadcasts and conferences, and shooting my mouth off and really going to town. — Peter Maxwell Davies

Talk radio has almost ruined the sports fan. — Phil Simms

I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I'm listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it's plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it's at a level of superficiality that's beyond belief. — Noam Chomsky

The talk shows I've done are all radio for exactly this reason: I don't want to wear a rubber mask. — Gregory Benford

The bombing in Oklahoma City has focused renewed attention on the rhetoric that's been coming from the right and those who cater to angry white men. Right-wing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Bob Grant, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy, Michael Reagan and others take to the air every day with basically the same format: Detail a problem, blame the government or a group and invite invective from like-minded people. Never do most of the radio hosts encourage outright violence, but the extent to which their attitudes may embolden or encourage some extremists has clearly become an issue. — Bryant Gumbel

I never realized that growing up in Brooklyn, flying jets, working on Wall Street and starring in a sci-fi series was the prerequisite for the fast-paced demands of talk radio. But, if that's what it takes to succeed, I'm glad I did it all. — Jerry Doyle

Most conservative and progressive talk radio is primarily just that - bloviated opinion and whacky viewer calls. — David Shuster

I'm a huge sports fan but have no interest in minutiae. I don't remember who won Super Bowls five years ago or listen to sports talk radio. — Norm MacDonald

She'd jury-rigged a computer using pieces scavenged from several crashed fighters over the years, including a cracked but still-usable display from an old BTL-A4 Y-wing. There were no radio communications to speak of - no way to transmit or receive and, frankly, nobody she wanted to talk to anyway. On the wreckage of a Zephra-series hauler, though, she'd once found a stash of data chips, and after painstakingly going through each and every one of them, she'd discovered three with their programs intact; one of them, to her delight, had been a flight simulator. — Greg Rucka

Panic bloomed in my chest. Before I could scramble off his lap, he reached up and gently stroked my hair. I froze, hands braced on his chest for stability, ready to flee. "I've been waiting for that since the moment I saw you," he said in a deep and husky voice. He sounded like a midnight radio DJ. Hearing his perfect voice ignited my temper. Now, he could talk? I scowled at him. The man had the audacity to laugh then scoop me up in his arms. The — Melissa Haag

Do we really want the FCC to conduct investigations and issue warnings to radio talk show hosts nationwide who simply discuss the important issues of our time? The Constitution says 'freedom of speech,' not 'freedom of government-approved fair speech in rationed amounts.' — Tim Walberg

[Conservative talk radio hosts] have conned the American people into thinking there is such a thing as a pro-life, pro-war, pro-gun, pro-death penalty Christian. — Janeane Garofalo

When Limbaugh entered the world of talk radio, the AM dial was essentially moribund. He turned it into a weapon for conservatism, and in the process, led the revolution that has ended in the disintegration of the old media monopoly. — Ben Shapiro

I can't talk on the radio at all. When the red light comes on, my hands go up in the air: I think they're trying to get to my face, to shut me up. I don't talk on stage for the same reason. — Alison Mosshart

I was definitely surprised when Talk Radio took off as a play. As a film it has become somewhere between a popular thing and a cult thing. — Eric Bogosian

Uncertain about an aspect of training? Read, consult others and experiment. In the end, though, listen to the body and the Voice Inside. Instead of dousing it with music, podcasts or talk radio, let the Voice Inside play out and wind past rumination to rich sediment that informs what drives and scares you. — Gina Greenlee

I didn't start talk radio until '95 in L.A. The show was very successful, and they actually tried to syndicate it nationally, but I couldn't get stations. It was like, "We don't care that she's funny and she's got great ratings. She's liberal!" — Stephanie Miller

MAKE WAVES WITH ME! My talk's not cheap, but sponsorship is inexpensive and tax-deductible. — Lisa Tolliver

I found out about college radio and this whole noise genre blew me away. When I saw that guys could just get up there and have no traditional music ability and be in a band, it was really appealing to me. — Girl Talk

If Mitt Romney can be pushed around, intimidated, coerced, co-opted by a conservative radio talk show host in Middle America, then how is he going to stand up to the Chinese? How is he going to stand up to Putin? How is he going to stand up to North Korea if he can be pushed around by a yokel like me? I don't think Romney is realizing the doubts that this begins to raise about his leadership. — Bryan Fischer

We find a giant like Picasso shifting in his own lifetime from style to style, partly as a reflection of the shifting character of the last four decades in Western society, and partly like a man dialing a ship's radio on the ocean, trying vainly to find the wave length on which he can talk to his fellow men. But the artists, and the rest of us too, remain spiritually isolated and at sea, and so we cover up our loneliness by chattering with other people about the things we do have language for - the world series, business affairs, the latest news reports. Our deeper emotional experiences are pushed further away, and we tend, thus, to become emptier and lonelier. — Rollo May

I mean it's - it is hard to find a voice on talk radio that is not a conservative voice. — Cokie Roberts

I think Ronald Reagan is what happened ... The age of Reagan brought conservatism into the mainstream ... It also brought us the beginning of the new media-talk radio, the internet, cable television. — Douglas Brinkley

Female listeners are leaving traditional talk radio because of the rough-edged, shouting nature of it. Women want more light and less heat. — Jane Fonda

In the last month of the presidential campaign, I tuned in to conservative talk radio and listened as callers considered the unthinkable. One after another, they all threatened the same thing: "If McCain doesn't win, I'm leaving the country." "Oh, right," I'd say. "You're going to leave and go where? Right-wing Europe?" In the Netherlands now, I imagine it's legal to marry your own children. Get them pregnant, and you can abort your unborn grandbabies in a free clinic that used to be a church. The doctor might be a woman who became a man and then became a woman again, all on taxpayers' dollars, but as long as she saves the stem cells, she'll have the nation's blessing. — David Sedaris

The campaign of character assassination waged [against President Clinton] by the right was a singular, unprecedented effort. Nothing like it exists on the left. What I object to on the right is the obsessive hatred, the bigotry, and the personal savaging of their opponents, all achieved through an echo chamber of talk radio, the Internet and Rupert Murdoch's media outlets. That kind of well-funded disinformation campaign has no analog on the left. — David Brock

Just about any story we think about doing, whether we've read it in a newspaper, heard it on the radio or come upon it through word of mouth - by the time you get there, every other network, cable station and talk show is already racing to the scene. — Connie Chung

Now they talk on the radio about the record set by (Babe) Ruth, and (Joe) DiMaggio and Henry Aaron. But they rarely mention mine. Do you know what I have to show for the sixty-one home runs? Nothing, exactly nothing. — Roger Maris

People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain. — Jim Morrison

The body consists of three parts: the brainium, the borax and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain. The borax contains the heart and lungs and the abominable cavity contains the bowels of which there are five: a, e, i, o, u. — Tom Magliozzi

I thought you just told me they used radio.
They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat. — Terry Bisson

I'm creating a self help show called Self Talk. I'll insult myself for an hour then open phone lines to a fitness coach & my mother-in-law. — Ryan Lilly

Edward Smith: What do you think is the characteristic of a really nice person? Some people you obviously do like more than others.
Andy Warhol: Ummm, well, if they talk a lot.
ES: What, and don't make you talk?
AW: Yeah, yes, that's a really nice person. — Andy Warhol

And one of the things that makes me happiest and proudest is that the talk radio venue, the whole market has expanded. There are all kinds of people doing it. — Rush Limbaugh

Dear America,
I suppose we should introduce ourselves: We're South Louisiana ... You probably already know that we talk funny and listen to strange music and eat things you'd probably hire an exterminator to get out of your yard.
We dance even if there's no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly,we're suspicious of others who don't. — Chris Rose

There's a big mistake the left has made with talking to religious people, which is attempting to talk them out of their interpretations of the Bible, attempting to have theological debate with them. When I'm on right-wing whackjob radio, when people call up to inform me that I'm going to hell, I concede the point. "I'm going to hell. Yes. Can you leave me alone now?" — Dan Savage

I remember people would talk about Country Music like it was this sexist, lame thing. Well, no, because Dolly Parton is writing songs and playing her guitar and producing. She's doing it all and she's got hits on the radio. — Neko Case

Talk radio doesn't need to be political. — Jim Sullivan

When I talk about the Internet, it's because young people are there. TV and radio are still what moves the masses, and you can't ignore that. But you also have to feed that monster that grows daily, which is the Internet. — Daddy Yankee

CNN recently ran a sort of roundup article on why some conservatives say that Trump talk is fascist. The roundup included this tweet from Iowa Republican radio host, very influential guy in Iowa Republican caucuses, Steve Deace. Quote, "If [Barack] Obama proposed the same religion registry as Trump, every conservative in the country would call it what it is - creeping fascism." — Rachel Maddow

As a longtime fan of talk radio, I'm very worried about the low opinion that conservative hosts and callers have of the American artist. Art is portrayed as a scam, a rip-off and snow job pushed by snobbish elites. — Camille Paglia

Radio news is bearable. This is due to the fact that while the news is being broadcast, the disk jockey is not allowed to talk. — Fran Lebowitz

Podcasting is not really that different from streaming music, which we've done for quite a long time. Having a traditional podcast that people subscribe to - the hype is ahead of the quality. Podcasting is essentially a download, and you run into copyright issues. What you're left with currently is podcast talk radio. — Chris DeWolfe

Don't call me when you're stuck in traffic. It's not my fault that radio sucks and did it ever occur to you that there wouldn't be so much traffic if people like you put down the phone and concentrated on the road ... besides I can't talk now, I'm in the car behind you trying to watch a DVD. — Bill Maher

I don't think my record collection or musical knowledge is vast. I just listen to the radio all the time - I'm a pop music enthusiast. — Girl Talk

Conservative talk radio works because there are lots of conservatives who are convinced that they are not getting the whole story from the regular media. — Paul Weyrich

When I hear other artists talk, they talk about 'How come radio's not playing my song?' Well, you have to look at it under a microscope and know that each station is just trying to do what's right for their market, and it's scary for a radio station to add a song that they don't know how well it's gonna do for them. — Blake Shelton

The sports space is so full of opinion that you aren't hearing from the athletes just speaking for themselves. We are such a Twitter-oriented society with radio talk shows, TV talk shows and social media - what you are missing is the authentic, unfiltered aspect of who these people are. — Hannah Storm

I sort of try to write everything for me. I'm a huge sports fan but have no interest in minutiae. I don't remember who won Super Bowls five years ago or listen to sports talk radio. I'm trying to make sure the jokes are self-contained so they're accessible to everyone. — Norm MacDonald

How do you keep a mattress on the roof of your car from flying?"
"Yeah, well, I don't know how many people know it, but a lot of people have learned that putting your arm up there to hold the mattress is not going to work. — Tom Magliozzi

Conservatives, despite their increasingly powerful presence on cable TV and talk radio, feel excluded and disregarded by the longstanding preponderance of liberal voices on public television. — Michael Medved

Macro worries are like sports talk radio. Everyone has a good opinion which probably means that none of them are good. — Seth Klarman

I'm not shy, exactly, but I am private. I don't like to talk about myself. I had to learn - I was interviewed for print, radio and even TV. — Nick Harkaway

For all the talk about the merging of film and video game, and for all its inevitability, perhaps the secret of true convergence lies not in an external reality , but in an internal truth: What kids seek from video games is what we all seek from our own distractions--be they movies, radio, comic books, literature, or art: an escape from the mundane to the sublime, where our imaginations make of us heroes, lovers, warriors, and gods. — Devin C. Griffiths

What's different now is that while political leaders used to give talking points to talk radio, now talk-radio hosts are giving talking points to political leaders. It's all part of the suffocating spin cycle we're in. In media, politics and publishing, the conventional wisdom is to play to this base. — John Avlon

Talk radio has made an enormous run around establishment media. But the Internet is making an end run around talk radio. Suddenly we're faced with an information age. — Pete Du Pont

No, he probably wouldn't mention it - except to another flier. Then they will talk for hours. They will re-create all the things seen and felt in that wonderful world of air: the sense of remoteness from the busy world below, the feeling of intense brotherhood formed with those who man the radio ranges and control towers and weather stations that bring the pilot home, the clouds and the colors, the surge of the wind on their wings. — Percy Knauth

Traffic crawls
Cell phone calls
Talk radio screams at me
But through my tinted window
I see a little girl
Rust red minivan
She's got chocolate on her face
Got little hands and she waves at me
Yeah, she smiles at me
Well hello world
How you been
Good to see you my old friend
Sometimes I feel
Cold as steel
Broken like I'm never gonna heal
And I see a light
A little hope
In a little girl
Hello world — Lady Antebellum

You know, radio DJ's must really love to talk to theirselves. Especially when they have the graveyard shift. 'Hey this is Ellen with 89.1. It is currently three in the morning. There are few cars on the road. And it your still listening heres a little music to get you to dance.. — Ellen DeGeneres

I'd be at someone's house or be up on the roof all day and I'd get lonely - stir crazy - and talk radio became this soothing voice in my life. But the idea that I was making $10 an hour and stacking drywall while these guys were making a few hundred thousand, and they were having a party, and there were Playmates and there were good times, I just couldn't imagine it. — Adam Carolla

I've actually done events at radio stations where I feel like I've had to give a little talk in behalf of television as a medium. — Ira Glass

There is a paranoid streak in American life. Radio talk show hosts tend to foment that paranoid streak in American life. — Alan Dershowitz

In many ways, I think that, while we've been remarkably violent in our media, there's been a real schizophrenia. In private, on the Internet, and on public-affairs shows or talk radio, we're way more explicit than we've ever been. — Ivan Reitman

George is a radio announcer, and when he walks under a bridge ... you can't hear him talk. — Steven Wright

In Africa, there is much confusion ... Before, there was no radio, or other forms of communication ... Now, in Africa ... the government talks, people talk, the police talk, the people don't know anymore. They aren't free. — Youssou N'Dour

I prefer music but sometimes if there's on talk radio - someone might be on that I like. I listen to the old - to "Air America," down at the - liberal talk shows and things like that I find kind of nice, their criticizing the conservatives. I find that quite relaxing, entertaining, but music, a lot of music. — Robert Barry

Radio wasn't outside our lives. It coincided with and helped to shape our childhood and adolescence. As we slogged toward maturity, it also grew up and turned into television, leaving behind, like dead skin, transistorized talk-radio and nonstop music ... — Vincent Canby

Let me first talk about our brains as a personal radio telescope. Let me talk first about its wonderful built-in wiring for tuning out the static of our civilization in order to better tune in its symphony. — E.L. Konigsburg

Lately, I've been doing a lot of tuning in and impatiently tuning out. As a longtime fan of talk radio, I don't think this bodes well for the long-term broad appeal of the medium. — Camille Paglia

What unnerves so many liberals about talk radio? Simple: It's the unapologetic nature of the conversation, the unwavering sense of certainty. Where's the nuance? The shades of gray? We all know truth is a fragile butterfly dancing in and out of shadow and light, and these guys act as though truth is a rhino charging across a sunlit veldt. — James Lileks

Radio stations play what they believe is in, and they all talk to each other. — Nikki Sixx

Would you believe it? Would you believe it. Okay, this is WLRB, all-talk radio. Take a short break, then come right back to talk about whatever you want. Man, but I'm telling you: what's happening to this country! — Avi

What I hear every day on talk radio is America's lack of education - and I don't mean lack of college degrees. I mean lack of the basic art of democracy, the ability to seek the great truths that can come only by synthesizing the small truths possessed by each of us. — Donella Meadows

There's something nice about the silence of a car ride in the dark, going home. When you were tired of the radio and conversation, and it was okay to just be alone with your thoughts and the road ahead. If you're that comfortable with someone, you don't have to talk. — Sarah Dessen

Radio has always been pictures of the mind; for me, the essence of radio has always been voices that talk to me and don't patronise me. — David Rodigan

I loved being on the radio. Being paid to talk? It's like being paid to eat. — Rachel Maddow

In the alternate universe of conservative talk radio, the killing of Bin Laden coincidentally happened on Barack Obama's watch. He had to be kicked dragging and screaming into authorizing it, and even then he made lots of mistakes. — Jackson Katz

We're bombarded with liberal propaganda 24/7, from the early morning shows, Hollywood movies, documentaries and sitcoms, all major newspapers, fashion magazines, the sports pages, public schools, college professors and administrators, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Unless liberals specifically seek out Ann Coulter books and columns, which I highly recommend, or tune into Fox News or conservative talk radio, they have no idea what conservatives are thinking. — Ann Coulter

There is a continuous stream of opinions on governance issues expressed daily, not only in our Parliament and in the print media, but also on talk-radio and social media. — Anthony Carmona

I have a lot of good football talk with cabbies, but when you want to get somewhere in a hurry, it can be distracting. I always know they're going to want to talk football if 'Talksport' is on the radio. — Frank Lampard

To be sure, conservative radio talk show hosts have a built-in audience unavailable to liberals: People driving cars to some sort of job. — Ann Coulter