Norman Lear Quotes - Page 2

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• We did an episode on Good Times which came out of a newspaper article about the incidence of hypertension in black males being higher than whites, and increasing. So we did a show in which James, the father on Good Times, had hypertension.

  Norman Lear

  Father, Black, Males

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. April 27, 2005.

  55 Copy quote

• I never met who I really wanted to meet, and that was Charlie Chaplin.

  Norman Lear

  Mets, Chaplin, Wanted

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

  5 Copy quote

• We had a Judeo-Christian ethic hanging around a couple thousand years that didn't help erase racism at all. So the notion of the little half-hour comedy changing things is something I think is silly.

  Norman Lear

  Christian, Couple, Silly

  Source: www.avclub.com

  6 Copy quote

• I get a kick out of the fact that people will pick on the writers in California for being responsible for the content. The people seriously responsible for the content are the people who buy it.

  Norman Lear

  California, People, Facts

  5 Copy quote

• Culturally, I think 'All in the Family' was universal enough to have good timing at any time.

  Norman Lear

  Thinking, Timing, Enough

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

  5 Copy quote

• In one question you are expressing a world of opinion. Because it is you who thinks that America has been mistakenly starting these conflicts. I happen to agree with you, and I will repeat what your question suggested...we have mistakenly gotten into one fracas after another. Why we do that [United States has insisted on keeping up a string of enemies, and the wars associated with creating those enemies], I think it's because we're afraid to look in the mirror and understand who we are.

  Norman Lear

  War, Thinking, Mirrors

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

  4 Copy quote

• As H.L. Mencken once said, 'nobody ever when broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.' Our show [All in the Family] countered that witticism. I think he was wrong.

  Norman Lear

  Thinking, People, Underestimate

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

  4 Copy quote

• I think what's dangerous is 24 hours a day, 335 channels, or whatever the hell there is. Too much is too much.

  Norman Lear

  Thinking, Too Much, Hell

  4 Copy quote

• I think that of most leaders in religion as power brokers. They give orders, in a sense, to an audience every week, and that's where the definition of God starts.

  Norman Lear

  Thinking, Order, Giving

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

  6 Copy quote

• That's a very hard thing to help the establishment know. We're still an establishment that thinks the average mentality is something like 13 years of age, that never forgot H.L. Mencken's notion that nobody lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people. That's the horseshit the establishment has always lived with.

  Norman Lear

  Thinking, Average, Years

  Source: www.avclub.com

  5 Copy quote

• In my 90-plus years, I have lived a multitude of lives.

  Norman Lear

  Years, Plus, Multitudes

  4 Copy quote

• I got a call from an agent to come to New York City, and write for the 'Ford Star Revue.' Because at the time there wasn't much 'national television'.

  Norman Lear

  New York, Stars, Writing

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

  4 Copy quote

• Archie Bunker used to call me 'the laziest white kid he'd ever met.'

  Norman Lear

  Kids, White, Used

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

  4 Copy quote

• Life is about having a good time, and it was a good time. We did some things well and some things poorly, but that was always the case.

  Norman Lear

  Good Times, Life Is, Cases

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. April 27, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

• TV that people will never see, that giant international corporations will never touch, will never pay your salary.

  Norman Lear

  People, Giants, Salary

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. April 27, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

• It crossed our minds early on that the more an audience cared - we were working before, on average, 240, live people. If you could get them caring - the more they cared, the harder they laughed.

  Norman Lear

  Caring, Average, People

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. April 27, 2005.

  8 Copy quote

• There was no real controversy with All In The Family. That came from the people on the business end.

  Norman Lear

  Real, People, Ends

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. April 27, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

• When I got married for the third time, and I had children from my other marriage there, that's what I said when it came time in the ceremony for me to say something. I said, "I'm grateful to everybody that participated, everybody that participated in my life that got me to this moment. And everything was dead-right because everything is right now."

  Norman Lear

  Children, Grateful, Married

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• I think somehow I got a sense of the foolishness of the human - my favorite phrase, the foolishness of the human condition.

  Norman Lear

  Thinking, Phrases, My Favorite

  4 Copy quote

• I looked at enough of American Idol in the first weeks, and they're all about humiliation. I listen to Rush Limbaugh because I find it so repulsive. There are people with a little less sophistication who watch a lot of it, because we allow things to appeal to our baser instincts. But at the same moment, give me a little choice, and I'll make a better decision, because I have that ability too. And so does everybody else.

  Norman Lear

  Idols, People, Giving

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• I don't know how you can look back with regret if you're at a moment when everything seems fine.

  Norman Lear

  Regret, Looks, Moments

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• If there was a sense of - a bigger sense of responsibility in the various leadership positions in America, things would be not as grotesquely overly done as they are now.

  Norman Lear

  Responsibility, America, Would Be

  4 Copy quote

• We had two African American writers [Eric Monte and Michael Evans] on the show ['Good Times'] that knew Cabrini Green inside and out, and that's why we set it there.

  Norman Lear

  Two, African American, Green

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

  13 Copy quote

• But it also became the experience, or was the experience, of the writers who were attracted to this kind of humor. They're all men or women who come from the same kind of experience in their own lives.

  Norman Lear

  Humor, Men, Kind

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. April 27, 2005.

  6 Copy quote

• The people responsible for the dollars that will buy the sex and violence so many deplore, don't even know what's going - well, of course they know. But they're comfortably ensconced in their country clubs and churches, and very far removed from the decisions that are made on their behalf.

  Norman Lear

  Country, Sex, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

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