Quote

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

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
Causes
Shows
Care
Made
People
Gravitated
Issues

More quotes by 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
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
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
We had two African American writers [Eric Monte and Michael Evans] on the show ['Good Times'] that knew Cabrini Green inside and out, and that's why we set it there.
Norman Lear
Image
Life is about having a good time.
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
I was the laziest white kid my dad ever met.
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
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
Culturally, I think 'All in the Family' was universal enough to have good timing at any time.
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
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
There was no real controversy with All In The Family. That came from the people on the business end.
Norman Lear
Image
'All in the Family' took ten weeks to take off in 1971, and we were lucky to start in January, because if it had started in the regular fall season of 1970, I don't know if we would have lasted. The ratings didn't take off until the end of that fall season, when the other two networks ran out of fresh shows.
Norman Lear
Image
Nobody doubts my partisanship, but a lot of the activity is nonpartisan.
Norman Lear
Image
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
Image
I got a call from an agent to come to New York City, and write for the 'Ford Star Revue.' Because at the time there wasn't much 'national television'.
Norman Lear
Image
I guess the story that best defines us [with Bud Yorkin] and our relationship goes back to the [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis show. The four stage managers on that show became major TV creators and directors - John Rich, Jack Smight, Arthur Penn and Bud Yorkin.
Norman Lear
Image
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
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