24 Quotes by Lee Siegel

The Web critic relies on his or her readers for attentiveness and approval.

In 1986, human nature in America started to change. That year, 'The Oprah Winfrey Show,' based in Chicago, became nationally syndicated, and the country entered the beginning stages of a quiet cultural revolution.

It became inevitable that television would address life's mundane problems because television itself is so mundane, part of the ordinary flow of time the way those problems are.

I love the Internet; I'm on it all the time.

In urban America, you do not so much meet a romantic partner as inherit the product of someone else's romantic crimes.

Oprah's aspiration to inspire her audience with hope - elaborated on her TV show, in her magazine, and on her website - is hardly ignoble.

Television has to reflect back to you your own sense of security. It also has to mirror your sense of your own decency and your own limitations.

The sitcom's traditional role has been to comfort the viewer who feels burdened by the unreality of American expectations.

A single week of Oprah takes you from bondage to all the violent terrors of life, to escape through vicarious encounters with celebrity, to visions of charity and hope, to hard resolve, to redemption and moral renovation.