Larry Gelbart Quotes

People ultimately get what they deserve on TV. What people end up watching is what the advertising end up glomming onto and promoting.

Give the public the 'image' of what it thinks it ought to be, or what television commercials or glossy magazine ads have convinced us we ought to be, and we will buy more of the product, become closer to the image, and further from reality.

Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want

The 1960s was probably the first time in history that young people were recognized as a big group of consumers and as a commercial proposition for Madison Avenue. Advertising played a major role in creating the ethos of that era - the idea that, "Here it is, and you can have it now." I know that many kids thought that the ethos of the 1960s was due to their own peculiar virtues, but, in fact, it had a lot to do with the realities of the marketplace and commerce.

Life’s never a postcard of life, is it? It never feels like how you’d want it to look.

When I see a news story on a site, about a movie that I'm interested in, it's like the mouse going for the pleasure button and I click it. But then, when I see the movie, it's like, "Oh, I would have enjoyed the movie that much more, if I hadn't known that."

What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.

I'm disappointed in people in general.

The faults of advertising are only those common to all human institutions. If advertising speaks to a thousand in order to influence one, so does the church. And if it encourages people to live beyond their means, so does matrimony. Good times, bad times, there will always be advertising. In good times, people want to advertise; in bad times they have to.

Take Wrigley's Chewing Gum. I don't think the Internet is going to change how people chew gum.

​W​e're so used to having everything we want at our fingertips so I think that when things get tough it's ​difficult ​for people to persist through that.

Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.

Didn't you ever notice how it's always people who wish they had somethin' or had done somethin' that hate the hardest?

This world can only give me reminders of what I don't have, can never have, didn't have for long enough.

I've always been interested in being in other people's movies. I never get any offers.

Well now what's the use in dreamin' You got better things to do Dreams never did work for me anyway Even when they did come true

It's hard because people think they have something to lose and the truth is they have everything to gain in trying to love somebody.

Lots of people think things would be better some other way. That's why the world's lousy with theme parks.

To live sanely in Los Angeles ... you have to cultivate the art of staying awake. You must learn to resist (firmly but not tensely) the unceasing hypnotic suggestions of the radio, the billboards, the movies and the newspapers; those demon voices which are forever whispering in your ear what you should desire, what you should fear, what you should wear and eat and drink and enjoy, what you should think and do and be.

I'm definitely not a guy that comes in the dressing room saying, "Hey, everybody, what a wonderful life." I'm usually brooding about something I think is wrong. I care so much about getting the music right, and if I think someone's slacking I get very upset about that. I just can't go on stage and say, "Another day, another dollar," which I've heard a few people say: I can't go along with that at all. It's got to be as good as you can do - to my own detriment.

Everybody feels he has a right to a life of luxury - or at least comfort - so there's a lot of frustration and resentment when the dream craps out.

The things that I can't have I want, And what I have seems second-rate, The things I want to do I can't, And what I have to do I hate.

How many times have you bought something thinking it would make you happy, and found it does not?

I'm a big believer that media is an impulse business.

Sometimes we spend our money on something we think is gonna be great, and the titles shall remain nameless, but they're just a little disappointing.