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We just may be the most well-informed, yet least self-aware, people in history.

Norman Lear

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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
People
Informed
Aware
Least
History
May
Wells
Well
Self

More quotes by Norman Lear

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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
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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
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I think that of most leaders in religion as power brokers. They give orders, in a sense, to an audience every week, and that's where the definition of God starts.
Norman Lear
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I was the laziest white kid my dad ever met.
Norman Lear
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I wanted to work with Bert Lahr [the 'Cowardly Lion' in 'The Wizard of Oz'], and I did.
Norman Lear
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I don't know how you can look back with regret if you're at a moment when everything seems fine.
Norman Lear
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Bud [Yorkin] was the kindest and dearest man, and one of the most talented directors there was.
Norman Lear
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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
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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
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You know, you throw rocks in the lake and scientists will tell you you're raising the level of the lake, but all you get to see is the ripple.
Norman Lear
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So we gravitated to shows and issues and causes that made people care.
Norman Lear
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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
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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
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The trafficking of sex and violence is comes after the demand for ratings.
Norman Lear
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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
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Success is how you collect your minutes.
Norman Lear
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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
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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
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Nobody doubts my partisanship, but a lot of the activity is nonpartisan.
Norman Lear
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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