Television quotes
1.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside television — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"I knew I wanted to be an actor when I was very young. I guess I was about 6 years old at the time, and I was fascinated by television. I started having waking fantasies where I was in a movie and there were crane shots of me during a scene."
"I never say never, but I haven't been given the quality of script to compel me to go on television."
"Amongst my friends, I am known as the most cynical person they know - I'm incredibly cynical. I don't believe in God, I don't believe in the supernatural, I don't believe in anything! And I'm terribly cynical, and somehow or other, all three of my films and much of my television work has been rather sentimental, and 'heartwarming'."
"I've worked in the theater, television, and films. A five-hour TV series is certainly more time than a character I'd be playing in a film."
"Unfortunately in television, for whatever reason, fantasy became thought of as a kids' genre."
"Disparagement of television is second only to watching television as an American pastime."
"Television is a great leveler. You always end up sounding like the people who ask the questions."
"As long as each individual is facing the television tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege"
"We actually lead very violent, passionate lives and I think that we're hungry for insights into this condition. That's why we get all that stuff on television. It's really where we are, really what we are."
"Being able to take a traditional cable-television subscriber and give them new widget type applications to me is huge."
"I remember when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was up early watching television and watched the announcement. I didn't understand what the word 'assassinated' meant."
"I can't think of a performer who is better on television than in person."
"Just as a salesperson is never extreme or original or overdressed, so the TV retailers never do anything to distract their audiences from the real product, the commercial."
"TV shapes thought as surely as language shapes it."
"We film in front of a live audience, and I was a theater actor before I got into television, so I like that."
"Television provokes strong opinions, and sometimes we try a bit too hard to appeal to everyone."
"Television is a very highly constructed, and edited, and censored, and tailored, and marketed reality. But I'm not judgemental about it. I don't have anything against television. I just personally don't feel curious."
"There's so little difference between television and features as far as you make the film. I mean, you have less money and it's a little quicker, but the concept is all on television."
"Television is a passivity."
"Sometimes I don't get you,' I said. She didn't even glance at me. She just smiled toward the television and said, 'You never get me. That's the whole point."
