But it also became the experience, or was the experience, of the writers who were attracted to this kind of humor. They're all men or women who come from the same kind of experience in their own lives.
- Norman Lear Quote

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.
- Norman Lear Quote

Granted, the writers, directors, producers, and that community make a great deal of money. But they might be choosing to do a whole lot of other things for the living they make.
- Norman Lear Quote

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.
- Norman Lear Quote

I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins.
- Norman Lear Quote

In the area we're discussing, leadership begins on Madison Avenue, on the desks and in the offices of people who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying what will get them ratings.
- Norman Lear Quote

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.
- Norman Lear Quote

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.
- Norman Lear Quote

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.
- Norman Lear Quote

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.
- Norman Lear Quote

Nobody doubts my partisanship, but a lot of the activity is nonpartisan.
- Norman Lear Quote

Originally, with all the shows, we went looking for belly laughs.
- Norman Lear Quote

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

The trafficking of sex and violence is comes after the demand for ratings.
- Norman Lear Quote

TV that people will never see, that giant international corporations will never touch, will never pay your salary.
- Norman Lear Quote

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

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.
- Norman Lear Quote

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.
- Norman Lear Quote

When we went on the air, I didn't want to be interrupted for an act-one curtain.
- Norman Lear Quote