Television is like the American toaster, you push the button and the same thing pops up everytime.
—Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British-born American Film Director, Film Producer
Television: chewing gum for the eyes.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ in color for a full hour, there would be a considerable number of stations which would decline to carry it on the grounds that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable.
—Edward R. Murrow (1908–65) American Journalist, Radio Personality
TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they’ll have with twenty-six. Open your child’s imagination. Open a book.
—Indian Proverb
The most puzzling thing about TV is the steady advance of the sponsor across the line that has always separated news from promotion, entertainment from merchandising. The advertiser has assumed the role of originator, and the performer has gradually been eased into the role of peddler.
—E. B. White (1985–99) American Essayist, Humorist
We can put television in its proper light by supposing that Gutenberg’s great invention had been directed at printing only comic books.
—Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) American Educator
Television is the triumph of machine over people.
—Fred Allen (1894–1956) American Humorist, Radio Personality
There’s a good deal in common between the mind’s eye and the TV screen, and though the TV set has all too often been the boobtube, it could be, it can be, the box of dreams.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b.1929) American Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer
Television has raised writing to a new low.
—Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) Polish-born American Film Producer, Businessperson
Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn’t have in your home.
—David Frost (1939–2013) English Broadcaster, Writer
Why should people go out and pay money to see bad films when they can stay at home and see bad television for nothing?
—Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) Polish-born American Film Producer, Businessperson
Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
I’m always amazed that people will actually choose to sit in front of the television and just be savaged by stuff that belittles their intelligence.
—Alice Walker (b.1944) American Novelist, Activist
Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
—Bill Gates (b.1955) American Businessperson, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Author
The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.
—John Lennon (1940–80) British Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Activist
Star Trek fans usually know the metaphors of life better than most mainstream poets.
—Terri Guillemets
Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.
—Ask Ann Landers (1918–2002) American Advice Columnist
Television is becoming a collage—there are so many channels that you move through them making a collage yourself. In that sense, everyone sees something a bit different.
—David Hockney (b.1937) English Painter, Draughtsman
The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
—Fred Allen (1894–1956) American Humorist, Radio Personality
The difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a baby made in a test tube.
—Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American Novelist Essayist
The human race is faced with a cruel choice: work or daytime television.
—Unknown
I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.
—Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British-born American Film Director, Film Producer
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 (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
I would rather live my life than watch another person’s life on T.V.
—Indian Proverb
I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.
—Orson Welles (1915–85) American Film Director, Actor
So by all means let’s have a television show quick and long, even if the commercial has to be delivered by a man in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck, selling ergot pills. After all the public is entitled to what it wants, isn’t it? The Romans knew that and even they lasted four hundred years after they started to putrefy.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
Already we viewers, when not viewing, have begun to whisper to one another that the more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.
—J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) English Novelist, Playwright, Critic
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