Tom Shales

“Thank God for television. It's the only medium that can be watched with your mouth full.”

“Watching 'The Cosby Show' is like being smothered by a warm Jell-O.”

“Everybody on a sitcom is a wise guy.”

“Television is a triumph of equipment over people, and the minds that control it are so small that you could put them in a gnat's navel with room left over for two caraway seeds and an agent's heart.”

“Daytime television is a circus.”

“People who deny themselves television deny themselves the shared experience of their race.”

“The news is a festival of repetition.”

“Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.”

“The best things in life are not only free, but the line is shorter.”

“Part of the problem with the ‘Ceasefire Now’ movement is that it’s not a slogan. It’s a list of demands.”

“Television is a triumph of equipment over people.”

“People will watch anything. And that's the problem.”

“Reality television is the museum of social decay.”

“What ails us is not that we have seen so much on television, but that we have seen so little.”

“The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.”

“If you want to be a critic, you have to be willing to be disliked.”