Best 1632 quotes in «television quotes» category

(Things I learned from Lorne Michaels) Producing is about discouraging creativity

This is the lesson of all great television commercials: They provide a slogan, a symbol or a focus that creates for viewers a comprehensive and compelling image of themselves. In the shift from party politics to television politics, the same goal is sought. We are not permitted to know who is best at being President or Governor or Senator, but whose image is best in touching and soothing the deep reaches of our discontent. We look at the television screen and ask, in the same voracious way as the Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" We are inclined to vote for those whose personality, family life, and style, as imaged on the screen, give back a better answer than the Queen received. As Xenophanes remarked twenty-five centuries ago, men always make their gods in their own image. But to this, television politics has added a new wrinkle: Those who would be gods refashion themselves into images the viewers would have them be.

This is what comes from the wrong kind of attentiveness. People get brain fade. This is because they've forgotten how to listen and look as children. They've forgotten how to collect data. In the psychic sense a forest fire on TV is on a lower plane than a ten-second spot for Automatic Dishwasher All. The commercial has deeper waves, deeper emanations. But we have reversed the relative significance of these things. This is why people's eyes, ears, brains and nervous systems have grown weary. It's a simple case of misuse.

Those skirts are crunchy toast! Santana Lopez bent over in hers the other day, and I swear I could see her ovaries.

Through TV people turn their family living rooms into meditative dens of death and violence worship.

Today’s generation didn’t want to watch ancient actors reciting the same tired lines. They wanted to see themselves reflected onscreen –rude, raw, entitled. These kids needed to believe that they themselves were only one daring, controversial act away from being up on that screen themselves.

Too many vacations that last too long, too many movies, too much TV, too much video game playing—too much undisciplined leisure time in which a person continually takes the course of least resistance gradually wastes a life. It ensures that a person’s capacities stay dormant, that talents remain undeveloped, that the mind and spirit become lethargic and that the heart is unfulfilled. Where is the security, the guidance, the wisdom, and the power? At the low end of the continuum, in the pleasure of a fleeting moment.

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

To say that film and television are the same thing is to say poetry and the novel are the same simply because they are words written on a page.

To speak of television as 'neutral' and therefore subject to change is as absurd as speaking of the reform of a technology such as guns.

TRUE Hebrew Israelites DO NOT hate white people. TRUE Hebrew Israelites DO NOT have more than one wife. TRUE Hebrew Israelites DO NOT smoke marijuana or do any other types of drugs TRUE Hebrew Israelites DO NOT have to stand on corners Intimidating people into believing the way.

Try to bind me again... you'll die before you start. Nice Pickle Chips, by the way!

TV pollutes our minds and dulls our senses. It is a babysitter that molests children. And yet those who are on the television scream “first amendment” and “freedom of speech”. How is corporate control freedom of speech? And what rights did our forefathers grant corporations, anyway?

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.

TV is a pornographic cacophony of violence, death obsession, screams, gunfire and drama. You think it's fine because you are damaged.

TV families and your own are hard to tell apart, except your isn't interrupted every six minutes by commercials and theirs don't get bogged down into nothingness, a state where nothing happens, no skit, no zany visitors, no outburst on the laugh track, nothing at all but boredom and a lost feeling, especially when you get up in the morning and the moon is still shining and men are making noisy bets on the first tee.

Understanding knowledge as an essential element of love is vital because we are bombarded daily with messages that tell us love is about mystery, about that which cannot be known. We see movies in which people are represented as being in love who never talk with one another, who fall into bed without ever discussing their bodies, their sexual needs, their likes and dislikes. Indeed, the message is received from the mass media is that knowledge makes love less compelling; that it is ignorance that gives love its erotic and transgressive edge. These messages are brought to us by profiteering producers who have no clue about the art of loving, who substitute their mystified visions because they do not really know how to genuinely portray loving interaction.

Usually I spare myself from the news, because if it’s not propaganda, then it’s one threat or another exaggerated to the point of absurdity, or it’s the tragedy of storm-quake-tsunami, of bigotry and oppression misnamed justice, of hatred passed off as righteousness and honor called dishonorable, all jammed in around advertisements in which a gecko sells insurance, a bear sells toilet tissue, a dog sells cars, a gorilla sells investment advisers, a tiger sells cereal, and an elephant sells a drug that will improve your lung capacity, as if no human being in America any longer believes any other human being, but trusts only the recommendations of animals.

Watch a man--say, a politician--being interviewed on television, an you are observing a demonstration of what both he and his interrogators learned in school: all questions have answers, and it is a good thing to give an answer even if there is none to give, even if you don't understand the question, even if the question contains erroneous assumptions, even if you are ignorant of the facts required to answer. Have you ever heard a man being interviewed say, "I don't have the faintest idea," or "I don't know enough even to guess," or "I have been asked that question before, but all my answers to it seem to be wrong?" One does not "blame" men, especially if they are politicians, for providing instant answers to all questions. The public requires that they do, since the public has learned that instant answer giving is the most important sign of an educated man.

Watching TV becomes a full-time job when you can scan 200 channels all day and all night and still have the option of punching Night Dreams into the video machine, if the rest of the world seems dull.

Watching hours of television seemed to help, but it took brainpower to be so dumb.

Watching TV puts your own hell into a different perspective, if that’s what you want. Today I do.

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.

This is Lilly Heaven saying good night, and to all a very good night. Good night everybody. Here's wishing you pleasant dreams. Sleep tight. From all of us to all of you, a warm good night. And now we must, I'm afraid, say "good night." Good night, ladies and gentlemen, and good night. Thanks a lot and God bless you. This is Lilly signing off and wishing all of you out there from all of us in here the very best possible good night. I can only hope that you enjoyed watching us as much as we enjoyed being here. Good night. Pleasant dreams. Sleep tight. It's been wonderful being with you, and I hope you'll invite us into your living room again tomorrow night. From the actors and myself, from the staff here, I want to wish you all the best possible night and day before we meet again. It's been wonderful being with you. It's been truly grand. I only wish we could go on but I'm afraid our time is up, and so this is your Lily saying good night to you. Pleasant dreams. Good night all. Good night to you all. Good night to all of you. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night. To all of you out there from all of us here good night. And pleasant dreams till we meet again. Good night to you all. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night.

We have become a more juvenile culture. We have become a childish "me, me, me" culture with fifteen-second attention spans. The global village that television was supposed to bring is less a village than a playground... Little attempt is made to pass on our cultural inheritance, and our moral and religious traditions are neglected except in the shallow "family values" arguments.

Well, fame is a drug and when you take it away from an addict, things can get ugly.

Wenn ich alleine fernsehe, habe ich meine eigenen Regeln und schalte nur ab, nachdem etwas Gutes passiert ist, oder so, dass die letzten Worte, die man hört, einen nicht verletzen. Man will doch nicht abschalten, wenn zwei Leute mitten im Streit sind oder wenn jemand gerade 'Schwein' sagt oder 'Tod' oder 'Mein Auto ist verreckt'.

We're so used to events being portrayed in particular ways that when they actually happen to us, and our life bears no resemblance to expectation, we don't really know how we're supposed to respond. Our lives are unrecognizable to us. Should we still try to be happy, when everything seems so flawed and out of kilter and grey? How are we supposed to be content, when everything on television is so much better?

What about television?" a young man asked. "It's an octopus. It's no longer just a little box, it's the Love Machine." "Why the Love Machine?" a reporter asked. "Because it sells love. It creates love. Presidents are chosen by their appeal on that little box. It's turned politicians into movie stars and movie stars into politicians. It can you engaged if you use a certain mouthwash. It claims you'll have women hanging on your coattails if you use a certain hair cream. It tells the kids to eat their cereal if they want to be like their baseball idol. But like all great lovers, the Love Machine is a fickle bastard. It has great magnetism--but it has no heart. In place of a heart beats a Nielsen rating. And when the Nielsen falters, the program dies. It's the pulse and heart of the twentieth century--The Love Machine.

What exactly does that expression mean, 'friends with benefits'? Does he provide her with health insurance?

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.

When I was your age I knew how to listen to television and learn a few things.

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.

When your friend who died was still alive, did you ever tell him?” “Tell him what?” “That you’re… what’s the word? Celibate?” Tony asked, trailing his fingers along the buttons on the remote control but not really finding himself able to change the channel. His name, his daughter’s name, it all could’ve easily become a statistic, an obituary, had they not left the tower when they did. “I’m asexual, not a celibate,” replied the lawyer, “and sure, I told him…” She froze for a moment, averting her eyes to the ugly gray-and-red carpeting on the floor. “Clarence didn’t care, he was married, anyway. He always used to tell me, “you know, you’d make one hell of an ace attorney, Bailey!

Why do they call them daytime dramas, anyway? Shouldn't they be bedtime dramas? All anyone ever talks about is getting someone into bed! Plus if you're at home watching, you're probably watching in bed. And if you're like me, after an hour or two of watching all those sexy goings-on you forget the silly story entirely and fall asleep. Just like it's bedtime!

Why is this interesting? Why are we watching?

Why is it these days that so many people hate reading? Some people won't even touch a newspaper or magazine. It isn't television that kills reading, or cinema or radio, or even those accursed little things known as video games. People used to read all the time, but when the century shifted subtly, somewhere along the way, people forgot how to imagine. When did it happen? At what point? Who or what is to blame? Maybe it's just because the world has become so cold and scientific and shallow in recent years.

Why was Simpson called "OJ" except in some kind of branding or headlinese that said, "Look, this guy is sweet, wholseome, and nourishing (and 'Orenthal' is just too fancy)? You can have him for breakfast." (And "Sweetness" and "Sweet" are nicknames often given to black men.) Is "OJ" that far away from Jell-O? Wasn't that extended advertising campaign a way of saying you can trust our pudding because Bill Cosby likes it—sweet, wholesome, and pretty?

With television, we vault ourselves into a continuous, incoherent present.

Would you ever sleep with me?” he questioned once. “Never,” she’d replied, her large eyes shining in the bluish glow from his TV set, “but I love you… in a different way. I’ll always be loyal to you, I’ll never betray you, that’s how I love people.

Y la cuestión es ésta: la televisión invierte la evolución de lo sensible en inteligible y lo convierte en el ictu oculi, en un regreso al puro y simple acto de ver. La televisión produce imágenes y anula los conceptos, y de este modo atrofia nuestra capacidad de abstracción y con ella toda nuestra capacidad de entender.

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.

Unpaid internships are worse than slavery," Gabby said. I looked at her, unsure of what she meant. "They make us work ridiculous hours, for free, and they make us do things an employee would do. It's a scam, and worse, they make you feel like they're doing YOU a favor. It's such mindfuckery.

What is new is that we know so very much about the world, or at least the part of it that is most picturesquely exploding on any given day, that we're left with a desperate sense that all of it is exploding, all the time. As far as I can tell, that is the intent and purpose of television news. We see so much, understand so little, and are simultaneously told so much about What We Think, as a populace polled minute by minute, that is begins to feel like an extraneous effort to listen at all to our hearts.

What is strong enough to drown out your own conscience?

[W]hen a message is squeezed through a twenty-second news spot, so much can be lost that what is left will fail to move anyone enough to make them turn off the set and actually do something. Meanwhile, the viewers will believe that they have learned everything they need to know on that subject and will be bored the next time they hear it.

When I was in junior high school, I used to think that Disney's 1990's paranormal television program 'So Weird' was every kid's ideal life - not going to school, living on a tour bus, having rockstar parents, traveling all over North America and never staying in one place for more than a week or so. Of course, eventually the realization hits you that the kids out there who really do live like this, pulling up stakes every week and never staying with their friends or having a permanent residence, aren't really happy.

You are more likely to find three TVs inside a randomly selected house than you are to find a single book that is or was not read to pass an exam, to please God, or to be a better cook.

You cannot blame porn. When I was young, I used to masturbate to Gilligan's Island.

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.