We have too readily blamed shortcomings in American education on social changes (the disorientation of the American family or the impact of television) or incompetent teachers or structural flaws in our schools systems. But the chief blame should fall on faulty theories promulgated in our schools of education and accepted by educational policymakers.
~ E. D. Hirsch, Jr., in Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987.

Seeing a murder on television, can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.
~ Alfred Hitchcock

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
~ Groucho Marx

The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television.
~ Andrew Ross

Now the freaks are on television, the freaks are in the movies. And it’s no longer the sideshow, it’s the whole show. The colorful circus and the clowns and the elephants, for all intents and purposes, are gone, and we’re dealing only with the freaks.
~ Jonathan Winters

Television. Chewing gum for the eyes.
~ Frank Lloyd Wright

I didn’t even dream it [television] would be so good. But I would never let my children come close to the thing.
~ Vladimer Zworykin, on his 92nd birthday about his invention of the television.