This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.

A friend is somebody who says the same things to your face that they would say if you're not in the room.

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.

The first dead man on Omaha Beach must be a sailor!

Howard Beale is processed, instant God, and right now it looks like he might just go over bigger than Mary Tyler Moore.

Television will do anything for a rating... anything!

Television is not the truth. Television is a goddamned amusement park.

You're not such a dog as you think you are.

You don't send a man to his death because you want a hero.

I'm not sentimental about war. I see nothing noble in widows.

You British plundered half the world for your own profit. Let's not pass it off as the Age of Enlightenment.

Television is the menace that everyone loves to hate but can't seem to live without.

Don't think of it as art, think of it as work.

I'm a human being, god-dammit. My life has value!

I'm not a great writer. I'm a great rewriter.

God save us from people who do the morally right thing. It's always the rest of us who get broken in half.

Television is democracy at its ugliest.

Americans don’t want drama, especially good drama, they just want their boredom killed.