American Television Quotes

• I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Patriotic, Thinking, Alaska

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• May the Force be with you.

  George Lucas

  Movie, Film History, Psychics

  Star Wars (motion picture) (1977)

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• The days of television as we knew it growing up are over. You have a bigger, wider world audience on the Internet, larger than any American television series. People don't watch television in the same context as before. Nowadays they watch their television on the Internet at their convenience. That's the whole wave, and it's now - not the future.

  Criss Angel

  Growing Up, People, Over You

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• I was dreading all of the ghost stories of working on American television, not in the least, the length. In Britain, a series is six episodes of an hour drama, maybe sometimes eight, but never twenty-two, so I was petrified of that.

  Lennie James

  Drama, Two, Ghost Stories

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Even though I'm English, I've all my life been heavily exposed to American television and culture in general.

  Dominic West

  Culture, Television, Exposed

  "Dominic West on The Hour, John Carter, and yes, The Wire". Interview with Will Harris, tv.avclub.com. November 26, 2012.

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• The Simpsons is the best thing on American television.

  Stephen Hawking

  Television, Best Things

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• American television is very much created by the writers, just the volume of it. The writers are so key. You're just trying to do something that serves that script. And in general, film isn't all about the script, really.

  Richard Ayoade

  Keys, Trying, Television

  7 Copy quote

• Most of my life I was occupied with American television and American food. My ethnicity was my choice. It still is

  Isaac Mizrahi

  Ethnicity, Choices, Television

  25 Copy quote

• I grew up watching a lot of American television and so the American sound has been in my psyche somehow for a long time and is quite familiar and so that does make it easier.

  Toni Collette

  Long, Sound, Doe

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• American television really is pathetic.

  Brian Eno

  Television, Pathetic

  23 Copy quote

• Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy. In other countries, the business of laughing is left to the viewers. Here, their laughter is put on the screen, integrated into the show. It is the screen that is laughing and having a good time. You are simply left alone with your consternation.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Country, Laughter, Taken

  Jean Baudrillard (1989). “America”, p.49, Verso

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• I wanted to branch out into American television, specifically because you get to develop a character for a longer period of time and you get to develop a relationship with the audience.

  Joseph Morgan

  Character, Television, Branches

  Source: collider.com

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• The only time I was really surprised was the reaction to the [shoot dedicated to the] BP oil [spill in 2010]. I didn't expect it at all. It was for the August issue, perhaps one of the less relevant months, but there was so much buzz. It was picked up all over the American television, but I defended my position. I don't understand those that say that a magazine such as Vogue should not talk about these things.

  Franca Sozzani

  August, Oil, Issues

  Source: wwd.com

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• I think I've actually benefited from Australia being a kind of combination of both British and American culture. We kind of got the best of both British and American television and books, science fiction and fantasy, and so on. So I'm familiar with a lot of, for example, American books and television that a British author of my generation might not be.

  Garth Nix

  Book, Thinking, Australia

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• Ratings to me are a little like the Chinese Government. I don't fully understand what makes a rating go. I don't know what makes the American television audience respond to one person and not t another. There very seldom are great differences between many television personalities.

  Tom Brokaw

  Government, Differences, Personality

  "New Again: Tom Brokaw". Interview with Gale Lopez, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 20, 2015.

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• I think good-looking people seldom make good television. And American television studios almost concede before they start: 'Well, it won't be good, but at least it'll be good-looking. We'll have nice-looking girls in tight shirts with F.B.I. badges and fit-looking guys with lots of hair gel vaulting over things.'

  Hugh Laurie

  Girl, Nice, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• There's definitely a wave of Brits doing great work on American television, and I wouldn't mind being one of them!

  Rob James-Collier

  Mind, Television, Wave

  "'Downton Abbey' Cast Spills Secrets on Hollywood Ambitions at Season 3's U.S. Premiere". www.hollywoodreporter.com. December 10, 2012.

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• Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy. It is unrelenting; the news, the stock-exchange reports, and the weather forecast are about the only things spared.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Laughter, Taken, Weather

  Jean Baudrillard (1989). “America”, p.49, Verso

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• Well, certainly I think American television is - that's proper TV.

  Graham Norton

  Thinking, Television, Tvs

  Interview with Ken Plume, asitecalledfred.com. February 2003 - August 2004.

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• There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.

  Peter Ustinov

  Jesus, Machines, Television

  "The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations" edited by Robert Andrews, (p. 742), 1993.

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• What I can say that's different in American television… in Britain, they wouldn't cancel something after a couple of episodes. In the States they would. They would just decide it's not working, take it off and put something else in on the fall schedule.

  John Barrowman

  Couple, Fall, Different

  "‘Arrow’: John Barrowman talks archery, ‘Doctor Who’ anniversary". Interview with Patrick Kevin Day, herocomplex.latimes.com. December 12, 2012.

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• I think the reality is Michael Jackson's humanity is so deep, the implications and inferences of his art so monumentally and magnificently global, that nothing American television could do to besmirch his character could ever, if you will, deny the legitimate genius that he represents and America has responded, as indeed has the globe.

  Michael Eric Dyson

  Art, Character, Thinking

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• American television constantly tries to co-op British comedy and create their own version of it. Most of the time it doesn't work; obviously, in the case of 'The Office,' it did. But a lot of times, it doesn't really work.

  Chris Hardwick

  Office, Trying, Television

  "Chris Hardwick Reveals Details of BBC America Deal, How Nerdist Podcast Will Be Adapted for TV (Q&A)". Interview with Philiana Ng, www.hollywoodreporter.com. May 25, 2011.

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• That happiness is to be attained through limitless material acquisition is denied by every religion and philosophy known to mankind, but is preached incessantly by every American television set.

  Robert Neelly Bellah

  Philosophy, Acquisition, Television

  Robert Neelly Bellah (1975). “The broken covenant: American civil religion in time of trial”, Harper San Francisco

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• The standardization of world culture, with local popular or traditional forms driven out or dumbed down to make way for American television, American music, food, clothes and films, has been seen by many as the very heart of globalization.

  Fredric Jameson

  Heart, Clothes, Culture

  Fredric Jameson (2009). “Valences of the Dialectic”, Verso Books

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