Quotes & Sayings About Television

The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity or Libertad Act of 1996, better known as the Helms-Burton Act, was passed by the 104th United States Congress on March 6, 1996 and enacted into law by President Bill Clinton on March 12, 1996. Its intention was to bolster and continue the United States embargo against Cuba. It also opposes Cuban membership in international institutions, and prohibits commercial television broadcasts from the United States to Cuba. Further, the law provides for protection of the property rights of certain United States nationals and the property formerly owned by U.S. citizens but confiscated by Cuba after the Cuban revolution, The Act is named for the original sponsors, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and Representative Dan Burton of Indiana. — Hank Bracker

When I was at drama school in the U.K., I was there for two and a half years, and we did one week of television and film. It's right before you leave. It's like, 'We've taught you Chekhov and Shakespeare; you are likely to be in a washing-up soap-liquid commercial.' — James Callis

The first ads for medical marijuana have started airing on television in California. The ads are quite expensive. It costs a lot of money to buy 30 seconds during 'Spongebob Squarepants.' — Craig Ferguson

I have to paint fast on television because of the limited time, but I don't want people to see what I'm showing them as work, something to worry and fret over. This is supposed to be fun. — Bob Ross

I love what movies and television and all that kind of stuff has done to me through the years. I love that it can bring up all these different emotions in me - whether it's anger or happiness or sadness ... whatever it may be. — Kevin Sorbo

Film, television, and working with a camera is such an intimate art form that if a camera is right on you, and I've got your face filling the screen, you have to be real. If you do anything that is fake, you're not going to get away with it, because the camera is right there, and the story is being told in a very real way. — Paul Feig

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

You know what, I'd done an interview show when I was like 16 or 17. One of my first jobs. I did interviews for this television show in Toronto. — Keanu Reeves

Luna didn't seem perturbed by Ron's rudeness; on the contrary, she simply watched him for a while as though he were a mildly interesting television programme. — J.K. Rowling

Underneath our nice, friendly facades there is great unease. If I were to scratch below the surface of anyone I would find fear, pain, and anxiety running amok. We all have ways to cover them up. We overeat, over-drink, overwork; we watch too much television. — Joko Beck

I've had a long line of failed television programs, pilots that were never picked up, series that didn't go very long. I've learned that there's really nothing you can do. If it's not in my control, I try not to worry about it. — Nathan Fillion

There's a lot that you can do in television that you can't do with a film, theoretically. At the time, the only possibility was to do a movie. — Mitchell Hurwitz

As for the industry, it has certainly changed. I think with all of these television shows and YouTube and the internet, you have so much less time to develop as an artist and perfect your craft. So many things today are "instant" and, that's not always a good thing. — Olivia Newton-John

Sabbath is more than the absence of work; it is not just a day off, when we catch up on television or errands. It is the presence of something that arises when we consecrate a period of time to listen to what is most deeply beautiful, nourishing, or true. It is time consecrated with our attention, our mindfulness, honoring those quiet forces of grace or spirit that sustain and heal us. — Wayne Muller

I remember when I used to have actual time to write and now you don't have time and you just do it. I think it explains a lot about television. — Callie Khouri

Humans are very good at dreaming, although you'd never know it from your television. — Carl Sagan

There's a one in six billion chance you're gonna find your soul mate. But, maybe, your perfect soul mate is actually three or four half perfect people. How far are you willing to go to actually find that perfect somebody ... ies. If you're not willing to make a group of people your soul mate then you'd better plan on being alone. You'll always have television. — Christopher Titus

My mother always told me growing up I had a punchable face. Little did I know she was predicting my television career. — Michael Emerson

I don't know of any American playwrights who earn the bulk of their living writing plays. Many of the older ones teach, while a growing number of younger ones write for series television. — Terry Teachout

I don't feel I fit in with morning television because I'm like a vampire and I like to stay up late. — Paloma Faith

I hand over a lot of things when I'm home. Mom tells me she doesn't like my shirt I want to buy, and I hand it over. Not the shirt itself, but my wish for that shirt. I want to watch one television show and she wants to watch another one -I hand that over too. It's easier that way. I even hand over my toenails when she asks. But I think sometimes you need to put a thing in a box -even if the box is inside your head -and store it away for yourself. — Gin Phillips

Reality television paints a simple black-and-white world of good characters and bad characters; people we want to root for and people we want to see ruined. There is none of the gray ambiguity that colors real life. I no longer watch a lot of reality television, but sometimes I can't look away from 'Honey Boo Boo.' I just can't. — Molly O'Keefe

There came a point when I wanted to do television, and I didn't think the Afro was going to play, so I made a very difficult choice - to straighten my hair. — Jami Floyd

I did a little theatre work after that and the following year I got another part in a television series. Then it was almost to the end of the year before I got more work. That was coming to terms with the reality of the vocation I had chosen. — Karl Urban

Aaron Spelling went further than anyone has ever gone for television. — Linda Evans

The television anchorman Dan Rather turns up in rag-top native drag in Afghanistan, the surrogate of our culture with his camera crew, intrepid as Sir Richard Burton sneaking into Mecca. — Lance Morrow

To paraphrase Muggeridge: Everything is a parable that God is speaking to us, the art of life is to get the message. — Chester Elijah Branch

I have a Guinness Book of World Records entry as the most-watched person on television; now I have a new entry as the only man who has a crab named after him. — David Hasselhoff

The first dumb idea was to do it at all - to take 'Fargo,' this beloved classic, and turn it into a television show. The second dumb idea, when you do it and it works, was to throw everything out and start again. — Noah Hawley

You used to have to own a radio tower or television tower or printing press. Now all you have to have is access to an Internet cafe or a public library, and you can put your thoughts out in public. — Clay Shirky

It's easy for people to mistake most musicians as living the easy life. It takes a while to get to that point. I'm sure it's like that for acting and television. — Chaz Bundick

TV in America created the most coherent reality distortion field that I've ever seen. Therein is the problem: People who vote watch TV, and they are hallucinating like a sonofabitch. Basically, what we have in this country is government by hallucinating mob. — John Perry Barlow

When television killed comedy and love stories, the movie makers went in slugging. They offered the downbeat, the degenerate as competition. This seems to me to be a sad campaign for Hollywood to use to combat box office disaster. — Joan Crawford

You watch the country-music awards that they show on the television, and you see country music has reached about 1985. It's all huge processed drum sounds and chiming chorus guitars and programmed synths bobbling along in the background. — Andy Partridge

You have to be rather straightforward with your clients. You can't tell the parties only nice things. This is not an entertainment show; it's not reality television either. — Martti Ahtisaari

There's no bigger rush than working as a huge team on a set in film and television. — Kyle Cassie

Years ago I was on television having a discussion with Billy Graham about atheism. He was saying, even if you're right and I'm wrong, and there's nothing after, I will have had a better life than you, because I do believe there was something. And I couldn't argue with that, even though I wanted to. — Woody Allen

The type of adverts to be found on television and in glossy magazines are visually designed to have a power over the mind before they can even be questioned. The dark side of my work, primarily concerns the internal mechanisms of visual imagery and how these mechanisms address the mind. — Mat Collishaw

If intelligence were a television set, it would be an early black-and-white model with poor reception, so that much of the picture was gray and the figures on the screen were snowy and indistinct. You could fiddle wiht the knobs all you wanted, but unless you were careful, what you would see often depended more on what you expacted or hoped to see than on what was really there. — Madeleine K. Albright

I don't like seeing myself on television and I don't enjoy filming. What I actually enjoy is thinking about how I am going to express something or how we are going to make the visual metaphor. — Robert Winston

I must say that when I left 'Doctor Who,' I was filled with ... not loathing, but I was incredibly annoyed because I wanted to do more television and films and the only thing that people could ever see me in was a recreation of what I had done. — Carole Ann Ford

I'm always interested in trying to stay on the cutting edge of television storytelling. To be slightly in front, pushing for the next new thing. — David Nevins

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

The more intelligent the storytelling becomes and the deeper the character development, people will realize in film and television, like they do in real life, that human beings possess both good and bad. — Robert LaSardo

I had a hard time on TV, the last time on television, so I wasn't sure that I wanted to do that again. But, I really am a big fan of Jenji and I knew this is her next thing, so I read it. And once I read the script, I was really, really impressed that there was a woman who was the centerpiece of her own story, and that she was in the center of her own narrative. — Taylor Schilling

I want gunshots and canned laughter and dog food commercials. Nothing seems too tragic when the television is blaring. — Liane Moriarty

Energy in itself is a sort of redemption. No wonder we admire Satan. But if the Devil were listless, if he were a pale man in his underwear who watched television by day behind closed venetian blinds - oh if that were the devil I would fear him. — Edmund White

Happiness, as a word, has become sort of equated with these smiling images on television, selling some nice cream or food product or something. It's seen a bit as being a stupid consumer. — Helena Norberg-Hodge

I was sued by a woman who claimed that she became pregnant because she watched me on television and I bent her contraceptive coil. — Uri Geller

CBS's halftime show during the 2004 Super Bowl was a new low for television. — Mike Rogers

I have children. I have a family to support. But I really could live in a one-room apartment, as long as the television worked. I never needed anything. Just a comfortable chair and I'm fine. — Albert Brooks

We chose younger and younger politicians to lead us because they looked good on television and were sharp. But really we should be looking for wisdom, and choosing people who had acquired it; and such people, in general, looked bad on television - gray, lined, thoughtful. — Alexander McCall Smith

I did radio, I did television, I did opera, I did films in which I had very, very little to say. But I had a lot of experience in front of the camera, and that's what really counts — Christopher Lee

The awful scenes of death and suffering we were witnessing on our television screens have been going on in other parts of the world for a long time, and only now can we begin to know what people have gone through, often as a result of our policies. — Howard Zinn

I'm a visual person - when I write, my input is always visual. I worked in television for several years. — Karen Traviss

I am deeply honored that my team is being recognized by H.S.H. Prince Albert II and the Festival de Television de Monte-Carlo for Disney/ABC's role in creating television that inspires and captivates audiences wherever they live. — Anne Sweeney

During Christmas time, on German television they show films with three or four episodes, and I quite like the feeling of waiting for the next episode. — Volker Bertelmann

My dad is a successful television producer, director and writer and my mom's a director and writer. — Troian Bellisario

Everybody was in tears. You turned on the radio or the television, and it was nothing but Gainsbourg. With typical British music journalist disdain, I just figured it was a testament to how poor French pop was if there was this much fuss about a guy who had one hit record, 'Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus)'. — Sylvie Simmons

All humans are essentially wild creatures and hate confinement. We need what is wild, and we thrill to it, our wildness bubbling over with an anarchic joie de vivre. We glint when the wild light shines. The more suffocatingly enclosed we are - tamed by television, controlled by mortgages and bureaucracy - the louder our wild genes scream in aggression, anger and depression. — Jay Griffiths

You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face:"Hey, look, this is what life is." And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don't like you, things you don't want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don't understand, feelings you don't want but have no control over.
Reality.
When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics - it's all rubbish. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's all made up. It doesn't happen like that. It's not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who've already forgotten how to smile ... — Kevin Brooks

One identity is as a television writer, which is very classically Southern California, but another of my personae is as a New Yorker cartoonist. — Bruce Eric Kaplan

Worship isn't destructive, Martin. I know that.
I don't. I only know it's the core of his life. What else has he got? He can hardly read. He knows no physics or engineering to make to world real for him. No paintings to show him how others have enjoyed it. No music except television jingles. No history except tales from a desperate mother. No friends. Not one kid to give him a joke, or make him know himself more moderately. He's a modern citizen for whom society doesn't exist. — Peter Shaffer

People who don't have gender dysphoria aren't going to catch it by watching me dance on television. — Chaz Bono

Getting a second thing isn't always easy in this busy, competitive television market. — James Wolk

Television's so quick, and there's so many other fun elements to it, but you don't get such good scripts and the time to really make much more three dimensional characters. — Lydia Leonard

The problem is I want to do everything. I really love all of it, and I love every aspect of movie-making and storytelling, and I love television, I love the Internet. I wish I had time to do absolutely everything. — Joss Whedon

Television glorifies war, ... And the reality is we have some remarkably brave men and women who work through such challenging circumstances to make us as safe as we are. — Dave Price

First and foremost, I'm a decorator and product designer. Everything I do, the television shows, the books, that comes from the design work. It's what I love. — Nate Berkus

Everything has changed in recent decades - the economy, technology, cultural attitudes, the demographics of the workforce, the role of women in society and the structure of the American family. It's about time our laws caught up. We watch 'Modern Family' on television, but we're still living by 'Leave It To Beaver' rules. — Thomas Perez

In television writing, you want to hear what the characters say as opposed to giving them something to say. It's the same with the cartoons. — Bruce Eric Kaplan

Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and comercials. — Neil Postman

There's also something happening in television similar to what happened in the '80s, when people stopped taking so many drugs and wanted to hear real instruments in music again. I think people want plot, story and characters. Those are more important than having a big star. — Jessica Pare

If you don't like me, you don't like me. You can call me anytime; I'll have an opinion on just about anything. I will also tell you if I shouldn't have an opinion on something - I just make television shows. — Edward Allen Bernero

Yes, it's a very difficult thing to do, to promote a record, do television shows, and to still want to remain private, it's really quite difficult to explain to people what you're trying to do. I mean I'd actually quite like to be a recluse, but you know, you've got to promote the record as well. — Chris Lowe

He might be famous (local newspaper or television) for finding it, true - but if fame takes away the thing it celebrates, then Sebastien would prefer the inspired silence. We're all famous in our own hearts anyway. — Simon Van Booy

On television, I have watched countless athletes from different countries, sports and Olympics stand proudly at the top of the podium and shed tears. They symbolized the Olympics for me because Olympic medals represent all of the hard work and sacrifices made by the athletes as well as the people who helped them reach the top of their sports. — Hannah Kearney

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

Television is bubble-gum for the mind — Frank Lloyd Wright

The actual time you're acting is miniscule compared to the time you're getting ready to do the work. The big difference on series television is, there's not a lot of hanging-out time. You're pumping those pages out, you're doing six, seven, eight pages a day. And I like that pace. — Joe Mantegna

The fact 'Twin Peaks' had a life at all took most of us in the cast by surprise. We thought it would be too unusual for network television. The original intention was that it would be a two-hour movie. If the network didn't want to pick it up as a series, it could just show that. But ABC took a chance. — Kyle MacLachlan

My parents had this relationship that was really terrifying. I mean, the level of hatred that they had, and the level of physical abuse - my mother would beat up my father, basically - and I think I was drawn to images on television that were bright and reflective. — Augusten Burroughs

Television has - particularly at the HBO level in the United States - become a completely new genre. Something like Deadwood or The Wire is a whole new thing - there was no equivalent to that medium before. It's like a new way of telling stories. — William Gibson

We film in front of a live audience, and I was a theater actor before I got into television, so I like that. — Jillian Bach

Thank God for theater and film and television and my very, very, very lucky life. — Jonathan Banks

[It] is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience. [ ... ] The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining. (87) — Neil Postman

Some of our newspapers and magazines are more concerned with the welfare of their advertisers than they are with the dissemination of news and the discussion of matters of lasting importance ... Radio, television, motion pictures, popular books - all contribute ... to ... the stifling of dissent on all but the most banal levels ... a renunciation of the most basic and precious of democratic principles. — J. Paul Getty

Her life was no more than a ghostly pageant of exhausted endurance, no more real than a television drama. Death, who now stood by her side, was as familiar to her as a family member, missing for a long time but now returned. — Han Kang

Television doomed us to the Family, whose household instrument it has become-what the hearth used to be, flanked by the communal kettle. — Roland Barthes

Television is making sports universal; for the same reason, big-time soccer is growing more popular in the United States. — George Vecsey

It's [Into the Badlands] something that's very, very different and I think that's why it divided critics initially because they didn't understand it or get it. They didn't understand or have a knowledge of what we were trying to do. Bringing in the Asian martial arts aesthetic to American television. For us, these are the people who will make the show a hit or a failure in future seasons. So it's for us to respect them and interact and see what they have to say. — Miles Millar

Adeline hadn't owned a television since 1992.
She'd suffered fifteen years hearing about how the Internet would transform American culture and open new avenues of expression.
But in the end, it was only more people talking about television. — Jarett Kobek

Television is a triumph of equipment over people, and the minds that control it are so small that you could put them in a gnat's navel with room left over for two caraway seeds and an agent's heart. — Fred Allen

If my life can inspire people, then a television show where guests talk about their challenges and what makes them unique would work. — Anupam Kher

It's one thing getting the job of Doctor Who, which is wonderful. And then the next thing they say to you is, 'We're going to announce it live on television!' And you think, 'That's not exactly what I thought I was signing up for!' — Peter Capaldi

I have five television sets. (I like to think of them as a set of five televisions.) I have two DVR boxes, three DVD players, two VHS machines and four stereos. I have nineteen remote controls, mostly in one drawer. — Rick Moranis

Often with television, particularly with lifestyle entertainment, they really try and box you in. — Nadia Giosia

We welcome into our homes the machines that vacuum the thoughts out of our heads and pump in someone else's. John Berger in Ways of Seeing said that television advertisers succeeded by persuading viewers to envy themselves as they would be if they bought the product. These programmes do something similar, by persuading the viewer to envy himself as he would be if his life were that little bit more exciting and melodramatic than it actually is. They can make things seem normal that are not. — Peter Hitchens

I find it very difficult to do anything on my own now because people recognize me. This has never happened to me before because I haven't really done television before. But I suppose if you're in people's rooms all the time, I don't know - I was thinking the other night with people like DiCaprio and, you know, those big stars and Cate Blanchett, and you just think how did they exist? It's so difficult. And I think now it's very intrusive because of these cellphones, you know, with cameras. — Maggie Smith

I don't watch much television. — P. J. O'Rourke