112 Quotes by Norman Lear

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.

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

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.

Life is made up of small pleasures. Happiness is made up of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. And if you don't collect all these tiny successes, the big ones don't really mean anything.

We got ratings. It isn't that they won't quarrel with you, or say you're always right. But as long as you stay strong and the ratings are good and you're reasonable - I don't think we fought unreasonably. We basically won that right.

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.

That's the heart of it: My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.

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.

Originally, with all the shows, we went looking for belly laughs.