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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Norman Lear
Age: 102
Born: 1922
Born: July 27
Actor
Businessperson
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Showrunner
Television Producer
Television Writer
New Haven
Connecticut
Norman Milton Lear
Minds
Harder
Early
Audience
Crossed
Working
Cared
Live
Laughed
Mind
Caring
People
Average

More quotes by Norman Lear

Image
We mocked that concept ['movies are better than ever'] by doing a sketch that was about a theater trying to get one customer to come in...and that customer was Jerry Lewis. It generated so much controversy that Dean [Martin] and Jerry [Lewis] had to apologize in a full page ad in Variety.
Norman Lear
Image
If there was a sense of - a bigger sense of responsibility in the various leadership positions in America, things would be not as grotesquely overly done as they are now.
Norman Lear
Image
I think for television generally, the question that often arises is, Does television lead, or does it follow? You know, does it lead the conversation, or culture, or does it follow what's going on? And I think it does both.
Norman Lear
Image
The movies had a slogan at the time, to distinguish themselves from TV, that said 'movies are better than ever.'
Norman Lear
Image
I think somehow I got a sense of the foolishness of the human - my favorite phrase, the foolishness of the human condition.
Norman Lear
Image
We just may be the most well-informed, yet least self-aware, people in history.
Norman Lear
Image
Nobody doubts my partisanship, but a lot of the activity is nonpartisan.
Norman Lear
Image
I think Americans have become a - much more a nation of consumers than citizens.
Norman Lear
Image
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
Image
It seems to me that any full grown, mature adult would have a desire to be responsible, to help where he can in a world that needs so very much, that threatens us so very much.
Norman Lear
Image
The people responsible for the dollars that will buy the sex and violence so many deplore, don't even know what's going - well, of course they know. But they're comfortably ensconced in their country clubs and churches, and very far removed from the decisions that are made on their behalf.
Norman Lear
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I guess because the shows were activist in their own way - the marriage of my public activism and my career activism, you know - people understand me very well. They also understand there's a very strong bipartisan part in all of this.
Norman Lear
Image
The evidence seems clear that those business which actively serve their many constitutencies in creative, morally thoughtful ways also, over the long run, serve their shareholders best. Companies do, infact, do well by doing good.
Norman Lear
Image
I don't know how you can look back with regret if you're at a moment when everything seems fine.
Norman Lear
Image
You're in the business - when you're a writer, producer, director - to get ratings.
Norman Lear
Image
The trafficking of sex and violence is comes after the demand for ratings.
Norman Lear
Image
Success is how you collect your minutes.
Norman Lear
Image
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