Television has been a constant presence in everyday life, informing, entertaining, and shaping how stories are shared across generations. It reflects changing cultures, technologies, and tastes while connecting audiences through shared moments on screen. The following quotes explore the impact, power, and possibilities of television in all its forms.
When you are the only laowai in a village of 10,000 Chinese martial artists and you've sat through several dozen films where a white man shouts, "You Chinese dog," before getting his ass kicked, it starts to irritate you. We all need role models.
- Matthew Polly
American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China
Fake it. We know you can do that. We’ve seen your sex tape.
A picture is worth 1,000 megapixels. High-definition (HD) TV images are used to camouflage some writers' low-definition (LD) vocabulary.
- John R. Dallas Jr.
We Need to Have a Word: Words of Wisdom, Courage and Patience for Work, Home and Everywhere
La televisión no es sólo instrumento de comunicación; es también, a la vez, paideía, un instrumento «antropogenético», un medium que genera un nuevo ánthropos, un nuevo tipo de ser humano.
- Giovanni Sartori
Homo videns: La sociedad teledirigida
Get your associates as fast as you can and then get a bachelors."
"I don't want that. I want to work in TV."
"Trust me, Laura. You'd be happier if you were an accountant.
"I don't want that. I want to work in TV."
"Trust me, Laura. You'd be happier if you were an accountant.
- Teresa Lo
Realities: a Collection of Short Stories
To paraphrase Muggeridge: Everything is a parable that God is speaking to us, the art of life is to get the message.
- Chester Elijiah Branch
Es cierto que la televisión, a diferencia de los instrumentos de comunicación que la han precedido (hasta la radio), destruye más saber y más entendimiento del que transmite.
- Giovanni Sartori
Homo videns: La sociedad teledirigida
The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force.
- Michael Parenti
Against Empire
People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.
- Jess C. Scott
Literary Heroin (Gluttony): A Twilight Parody
In honor of Oprah Winfrey: Even greater than the ability to inspire others with hope is the power to motivate them to give as much to the lives of others as they would give to their own; and to empower them to confront the worst in themselves in order to discover and claim the best in themselves.
- Aberjhani
Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
Anyone who watches even the slightest amount of TV is familiar with the scene: An agent knocks on the door of some seemingly ordinary home or office. The door opens, and the person holding the knob is asked to identify himself. The agent then says, "I'm going to ask you to come with me.
- David Sedaris
Me Talk Pretty One Day
For those whose ganglia were formed pre-TV, the mimetic deployment of pop-culture icons seems at best an annoying tic and at worst a dangerous vapidity that compromises fiction's seriousness by dating it out of the Platonic Always, where it ought to reside.
- Jonathan Lethem
You know, who tells the stories of a culture really governs human behaviour. It used to be the parent, the school, the church, the community. Now it's a handful of global conglomerates that have nothing to tell, but a great deal to sell.
- George Gerbner
The President is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the President on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm.
- Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
But though it had prevailed against such fierce adversaries as fire and flood, it had fallen victim softly and swiftly to television in the 1960's.
- Kate Morton
The Forgotten Garden
The antennae on his head look weird, I agree...but now I get Hulu and Netflix for free.
- GLEN NESBITT
I miss those days of live television. There was that electric sense of excitement, of importance, when you sent that signal, at that very moment into people’s homes. That sense of urgency is diminished in the refinement of perfecting everything through multiple tapings until the talent and production crew get it right. Often during this process the original vitality is lost along with that sense of power, of instantly connecting with the audience
- Ron Hull
Backstage: Stories from My Life in Public Television
When asked, I told the board that public television should never be judged by the number of people who watch. That’s a competition we’ll never win, but rather, the measure is the impact our programming has on the people who do watch.
- Ron Hull
Backstage: Stories from My Life in Public Television
The kind of men you see in the movies would be hard to handle in real life, though – they’re so fixated on their own masculinity. And sometimes that male pride, that proper behaviour, it all starts to seem ridiculous. If they could just get over themselves, then everything might be a whole lot simpler.
- Izumi Suzuki
Terminal Boredom: Stories
Betty White is the First Lady of Television in her own right. She inspired me to write among other artists.
- Laika Constantino
TV news has taught me vigilance can make the difference between being safe and becoming a victim.
- Christina Estes
Off the Air
Have you seen our ratings, Jolene? It’s like we’re back in the nineties. People are watching local TV news again!
The Bill of Rights is largely a prescription for preventing government from restricting the flow of information and ideas. But the Founding Fathers did not foresee that tyranny by government might be superseded by another sort of problem altogether, namely, the corporate state, which through television now controls the flow of public discourse in America.
- Neil Postman
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
MALDİV BEY: Onları, gerçek televizyon 'öldürdü'. Onlar bir tek televizyona inandılar. Televizyonu çok izleyen insanlar, bilgili insanlardır. Televizyona inanan insanlar ise aptaldır...
Dar Ayakkabıyla Yaşamak
Dar Ayakkabıyla Yaşamak
- Dušan Kovačević
Dar Ayakkabıyla Yaşamak
When you are the only laowai in a village of 10,000 Chinese martial artists and you've sat through several dozen films where a white man shouts, "You Chinese dog," before getting his ass kicked, it starts to irritate you. We all need role models.
- Matthew Polly
American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China
Fake it. We know you can do that. We’ve seen your sex tape.
A picture is worth 1,000 megapixels. High-definition (HD) TV images are used to camouflage some writers' low-definition (LD) vocabulary.
- John R. Dallas Jr.
We Need to Have a Word: Words of Wisdom, Courage and Patience for Work, Home and Everywhere
La televisión no es sólo instrumento de comunicación; es también, a la vez, paideía, un instrumento «antropogenético», un medium que genera un nuevo ánthropos, un nuevo tipo de ser humano.
- Giovanni Sartori
Homo videns: La sociedad teledirigida
Get your associates as fast as you can and then get a bachelors."
"I don't want that. I want to work in TV."
"Trust me, Laura. You'd be happier if you were an accountant.
"I don't want that. I want to work in TV."
"Trust me, Laura. You'd be happier if you were an accountant.
- Teresa Lo
Realities: a Collection of Short Stories
To paraphrase Muggeridge: Everything is a parable that God is speaking to us, the art of life is to get the message.
- Chester Elijiah Branch
Es cierto que la televisión, a diferencia de los instrumentos de comunicación que la han precedido (hasta la radio), destruye más saber y más entendimiento del que transmite.
- Giovanni Sartori
Homo videns: La sociedad teledirigida
The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force.
- Michael Parenti
Against Empire
People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.
- Jess C. Scott
Literary Heroin (Gluttony): A Twilight Parody
In honor of Oprah Winfrey: Even greater than the ability to inspire others with hope is the power to motivate them to give as much to the lives of others as they would give to their own; and to empower them to confront the worst in themselves in order to discover and claim the best in themselves.
- Aberjhani
Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
Anyone who watches even the slightest amount of TV is familiar with the scene: An agent knocks on the door of some seemingly ordinary home or office. The door opens, and the person holding the knob is asked to identify himself. The agent then says, "I'm going to ask you to come with me.
- David Sedaris
Me Talk Pretty One Day
For those whose ganglia were formed pre-TV, the mimetic deployment of pop-culture icons seems at best an annoying tic and at worst a dangerous vapidity that compromises fiction's seriousness by dating it out of the Platonic Always, where it ought to reside.
- Jonathan Lethem
You know, who tells the stories of a culture really governs human behaviour. It used to be the parent, the school, the church, the community. Now it's a handful of global conglomerates that have nothing to tell, but a great deal to sell.
- George Gerbner
The President is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the President on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm.
- Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
But though it had prevailed against such fierce adversaries as fire and flood, it had fallen victim softly and swiftly to television in the 1960's.
- Kate Morton
The Forgotten Garden
The antennae on his head look weird, I agree...but now I get Hulu and Netflix for free.
- GLEN NESBITT
I miss those days of live television. There was that electric sense of excitement, of importance, when you sent that signal, at that very moment into people’s homes. That sense of urgency is diminished in the refinement of perfecting everything through multiple tapings until the talent and production crew get it right. Often during this process the original vitality is lost along with that sense of power, of instantly connecting with the audience
- Ron Hull
Backstage: Stories from My Life in Public Television
When asked, I told the board that public television should never be judged by the number of people who watch. That’s a competition we’ll never win, but rather, the measure is the impact our programming has on the people who do watch.
- Ron Hull
Backstage: Stories from My Life in Public Television
The kind of men you see in the movies would be hard to handle in real life, though – they’re so fixated on their own masculinity. And sometimes that male pride, that proper behaviour, it all starts to seem ridiculous. If they could just get over themselves, then everything might be a whole lot simpler.
- Izumi Suzuki
Terminal Boredom: Stories
Betty White is the First Lady of Television in her own right. She inspired me to write among other artists.
- Laika Constantino
TV news has taught me vigilance can make the difference between being safe and becoming a victim.
- Christina Estes
Off the Air
Have you seen our ratings, Jolene? It’s like we’re back in the nineties. People are watching local TV news again!
The Bill of Rights is largely a prescription for preventing government from restricting the flow of information and ideas. But the Founding Fathers did not foresee that tyranny by government might be superseded by another sort of problem altogether, namely, the corporate state, which through television now controls the flow of public discourse in America.
- Neil Postman
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
MALDİV BEY: Onları, gerçek televizyon 'öldürdü'. Onlar bir tek televizyona inandılar. Televizyonu çok izleyen insanlar, bilgili insanlardır. Televizyona inanan insanlar ise aptaldır...
Dar Ayakkabıyla Yaşamak
Dar Ayakkabıyla Yaşamak
- Dušan Kovačević
Dar Ayakkabıyla Yaşamak
When you are the only laowai in a village of 10,000 Chinese martial artists and you've sat through several dozen films where a white man shouts, "You Chinese dog," before getting his ass kicked, it starts to irritate you. We all need role models.
- Matthew Polly
American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China
Fake it. We know you can do that. We’ve seen your sex tape.
A picture is worth 1,000 megapixels. High-definition (HD) TV images are used to camouflage some writers' low-definition (LD) vocabulary.
- John R. Dallas Jr.
We Need to Have a Word: Words of Wisdom, Courage and Patience for Work, Home and Everywhere
La televisión no es sólo instrumento de comunicación; es también, a la vez, paideía, un instrumento «antropogenético», un medium que genera un nuevo ánthropos, un nuevo tipo de ser humano.
- Giovanni Sartori
Homo videns: La sociedad teledirigida
Get your associates as fast as you can and then get a bachelors."
"I don't want that. I want to work in TV."
"Trust me, Laura. You'd be happier if you were an accountant.
"I don't want that. I want to work in TV."
"Trust me, Laura. You'd be happier if you were an accountant.
- Teresa Lo
Realities: a Collection of Short Stories
To paraphrase Muggeridge: Everything is a parable that God is speaking to us, the art of life is to get the message.
- Chester Elijiah Branch
Es cierto que la televisión, a diferencia de los instrumentos de comunicación que la han precedido (hasta la radio), destruye más saber y más entendimiento del que transmite.
- Giovanni Sartori
Homo videns: La sociedad teledirigida
The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force.
- Michael Parenti
Against Empire
People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.
- Jess C. Scott
Literary Heroin (Gluttony): A Twilight Parody
In honor of Oprah Winfrey: Even greater than the ability to inspire others with hope is the power to motivate them to give as much to the lives of others as they would give to their own; and to empower them to confront the worst in themselves in order to discover and claim the best in themselves.
- Aberjhani
Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
Anyone who watches even the slightest amount of TV is familiar with the scene: An agent knocks on the door of some seemingly ordinary home or office. The door opens, and the person holding the knob is asked to identify himself. The agent then says, "I'm going to ask you to come with me.
- David Sedaris
Me Talk Pretty One Day
For those whose ganglia were formed pre-TV, the mimetic deployment of pop-culture icons seems at best an annoying tic and at worst a dangerous vapidity that compromises fiction's seriousness by dating it out of the Platonic Always, where it ought to reside.
- Jonathan Lethem
You know, who tells the stories of a culture really governs human behaviour. It used to be the parent, the school, the church, the community. Now it's a handful of global conglomerates that have nothing to tell, but a great deal to sell.
- George Gerbner
The President is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the President on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm.
- Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
But though it had prevailed against such fierce adversaries as fire and flood, it had fallen victim softly and swiftly to television in the 1960's.
- Kate Morton
The Forgotten Garden
The antennae on his head look weird, I agree...but now I get Hulu and Netflix for free.
- GLEN NESBITT
I miss those days of live television. There was that electric sense of excitement, of importance, when you sent that signal, at that very moment into people’s homes. That sense of urgency is diminished in the refinement of perfecting everything through multiple tapings until the talent and production crew get it right. Often during this process the original vitality is lost along with that sense of power, of instantly connecting with the audience
- Ron Hull
Backstage: Stories from My Life in Public Television
When asked, I told the board that public television should never be judged by the number of people who watch. That’s a competition we’ll never win, but rather, the measure is the impact our programming has on the people who do watch.
- Ron Hull
Backstage: Stories from My Life in Public Television
The kind of men you see in the movies would be hard to handle in real life, though – they’re so fixated on their own masculinity. And sometimes that male pride, that proper behaviour, it all starts to seem ridiculous. If they could just get over themselves, then everything might be a whole lot simpler.
- Izumi Suzuki
Terminal Boredom: Stories
Betty White is the First Lady of Television in her own right. She inspired me to write among other artists.
- Laika Constantino
TV news has taught me vigilance can make the difference between being safe and becoming a victim.
- Christina Estes
Off the Air
Have you seen our ratings, Jolene? It’s like we’re back in the nineties. People are watching local TV news again!
The Bill of Rights is largely a prescription for preventing government from restricting the flow of information and ideas. But the Founding Fathers did not foresee that tyranny by government might be superseded by another sort of problem altogether, namely, the corporate state, which through television now controls the flow of public discourse in America.
- Neil Postman
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
MALDİV BEY: Onları, gerçek televizyon 'öldürdü'. Onlar bir tek televizyona inandılar. Televizyonu çok izleyen insanlar, bilgili insanlardır. Televizyona inanan insanlar ise aptaldır...
Dar Ayakkabıyla Yaşamak
Dar Ayakkabıyla Yaşamak
- Dušan Kovačević
Dar Ayakkabıyla Yaşamak