Norman Lear's Quotes

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.

That's the heart of it: My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.

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.

Life goes on pretty much the same way. I've been working on a couple of films on the side. You may see some more. You may even see another television show.

We got ratings. It isn't that they won't quarrel with you, or say you're always right. But as long as you stay strong and the ratings are good and you're reasonable - I don't think we fought unreasonably. We basically won that right.

So we gravitated to shows and issues and causes that made people care.

But you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that's not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met.

Life is made up of small pleasures. Happiness is made up of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. And if you don't collect all these tiny successes, the big ones don't really mean anything.

Even when they don't know who Nixon was, these shows will continue to play.

I stop and look at traffic accidents. I won't hang around, but when I hear something is terrible, as bad as it is, I've gotta look at it.

I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins.

In this nation, leadership is dollars.

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.

Maybe they continued to agree with Archie Bunker - as I said earlier, you can't change people's minds, but you can get them to think.

Nobody doubts my partisanship, but a lot of the activity is nonpartisan.

Originally, with all the shows, we went looking for belly laughs.

The American people may not be the best-educated, but they're very wise at heart.

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

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

We are a country of excess. So it's not the violence, per se, but the exacerbation and constant repetition.