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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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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
Scientist
Rocks
Level
Ripple
Levels
Lake
Tell
Raising
Lakes
Scientists
Throw

More quotes by Norman Lear

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I wanted to meet Bob Hope, and I got to know him pretty well.
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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Nobody doubts my partisanship, but a lot of the activity is nonpartisan.
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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When something is over, it is over.
Norman Lear
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I think Americans have become a - much more a nation of consumers than citizens.
Norman Lear
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The complete control of one party over everything - I would, I think, feel the same way if it were [the Democrats in charge]. It's not the American way.
Norman Lear
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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
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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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Culturally, I think 'All in the Family' was universal enough to have good timing at any time.
Norman Lear
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I get a kick out of the fact that people will pick on the writers in California for being responsible for the content. The people seriously responsible for the content are the people who buy it.
Norman Lear
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I never met who I really wanted to meet, and that was Charlie Chaplin.
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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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
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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
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The trafficking of sex and violence is comes after the demand for ratings.
Norman Lear
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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
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Life is about having a good time.
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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If there is a reason to believe in God, it would be the Havana Leaf.
Norman Lear