Andy Rooney Quotes

An Iconic Voice in Broadcasting

I am interested in details. If you go into anything far enough, you get into the details of it, and people turn out to be interested in what makes things work. I did not believe in the war. I thought it was wrong to go into any war. And I got to the war, and saw the Germans, and I changed my mind. I decided we were right going into World War II. Dogs are nicer than people. I understand shipping - you have to expect to pay for the stamps or for the freight company - but what's this handling they always have? How much does handling cost, anyway? I don't want a lot of people handling something I'm going to buy before I get it. How much would it cost if you didn't handle it before you sent it to me? I don't know anything offhand that mystifies Americans more than the cotton they put in pill bottles. Why do they do it? Are you supposed to put the cotton back in once you've taken a pill out? The third rule of life is this: Everything you buy today is smaller, more expensive, and not as good as it was yesterday. One of the things we can be sure of over the July 4th weekend is that news reports will keep telling us how many of us are going to die in automobile accidents. We can all be prouder to be human beings, because that's what they were. They make up for a lot of liars, cheats, and terrorists among us. Civilization means conforming to a standard of behavior that may not seem natural to us. Anyone should be very suspicious of a sentence he's written that can't be read aloud easily. Most of us aren't that interested in getting rich- we just don't want to get poor. Sooner or later the world will have to return to the good old days when we fought wars and killed people the old-fashioned way, one at a time. Everyone hates war, everyone says. Walking is good for the soul. Finding the tool is often half the battle. The teacher who knows the most about a subject isn't necessarily the one who can teach it best. Great teachers are usually a little crazy. Don't keep saying, 'I don't know where the time goes.' It goes the same place it's always gone and no one has ever known where that is. ... all of us talk faster than we listen. The great virtue of being alone is that your mind can go its own way. My most serious character flaw is that I don't deny myself much. Space, like Switzerland, should be neutral. There is obviously a great human need for religion because life seems to be such a mystery. There's nothing people like better than being asked an easy question. For some reason, we're flattered when a stranger asks us where Maple Street is in our hometown and we can tell him. Unfortunately, propaganda works. Those of us who don't have a party affiliation ought to be able to register under the heading 'Confused. We're all torn between the desire for privacy and the fear of loneliness. No one likes the house next door to look worse or a lot better than his own. Numbers tend to give the impression that there's more order in the world than there is. Numbers are the most certain things we have.

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