112 Quotes by Norman Lear

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.

Archie Bunker used to call me 'the laziest white kid he'd ever met.'

When I countered that Archie Bunker didn't have to put down a race of people to say that, he replied, 'and you're the dumbest white kid I've ever met.'

In one question you are expressing a world of opinion. Because it is you who thinks that America has been mistakenly starting these conflicts. I happen to agree with you, and I will repeat what your question suggested...we have mistakenly gotten into one fracas after another. Why we do that [United States has insisted on keeping up a string of enemies, and the wars associated with creating those enemies], I think it's because we're afraid to look in the mirror and understand who we are.

When I want to entertain entertainers, I call Jason Randal!

Success is how you collect your minutes.

I think America, unfortunately, collectively thinks of itself as the 'chosen people.' To my knowledge, there are no chosen people, we are all human beings.

The trafficking of sex and violence is comes after the demand for ratings.

... For all our alarm, it is clear that the religious right is responding to a real hunger in our society... a deep-seated yearning for stable values... When conservative Christian groups talk of failures in our educational system, the erosion of our moral standards, and the waste of young lives, they are addressing real and legitimate concerns... Among secularists, the aversion toward discussion of moral values, let alone religion, can reach absurd extremes.