Teri Garr Quotes

I think there are a lot of myths about MS, and it may have affected my career.

It was a very hard decision to let people know about the multiple sclerosis because we're in an industry where illness is not something that show business likes.

Everyone says TV's going down the tubes, and it's all reality, but there's some really good writing and some amazing opportunities if you're lucky enough to throw your hat in the ring.

You can't do anything else once you do game shows. You have no career.

You're a smaller fish in the U.S. There's just so many more TV shows, and actors, and actresses. Where as in the U.K. you're in a much smaller market there.

From an actor's point of view, you never really like to hope that anything will go beyond the pilot. I'd always say to my agent every time I filmed a pilot, 'Great! Well, I'll see you at pilot season.'

I would make the movie industry more like the television industry. TV is more material driven. In TV, you can break new stars. TV can take more chances.

I mean, in my - and I'm not trying to do spilled milk, but in those days it was a little - I think it was much tougher, because you got an image, and you were in a saloon. And it was tough to come out of a saloon and to get in films, and to maintain an image, you know.

I went to New York for a while before I moved to L.A., and I was very clear that I didn't want to do TV. For a decade, basically, I didn't even entertain the idea.

People ask me all the time, 'Are you fed up with reality TV?' At the end of the day, it can affect my career in the sense that the more reality shows there are, the less scripted dramas out there, but I can't ever really knock them. I started on 'Popstars,' which was a reality talent show. I have respect for them.

If it hadn't been for the videocassette, I may not have had a career at all.

Before MS moved in on me, I'd worked for seven years as a city lawyer, as the editor of a literary magazine, and before the age of 20, I'd also worked as a cadet journalist and as an assistant director in both film and TV. And then, after the lesions of MS, both on my spine and in my brain, I was the opposite of bionic.

As I slowly managed to take what I had learned into a transition from contestant to announcer and warm-up, I first had to prove myself on pilots. And as you know, many pilots are taped for each show that is lucky enough to breakthrough to being a series.

The great thing about being in this business is that you meet people, and I met Sally Struthers.

I didn't tell people because I didn't want pity, and I was afraid I wouldn't get work. But others with MS need to know they are not alone. We don't have to be victims.

The guy who shows up on time, who has a good work ethic, network executives and producers know that. It's a very small industry we work in.

When one woman found out I had multiple sclerosis, she said to me, 'My heart bleeds for you.' I said to her, 'Well, my heart bleeds for you, because you're an idiot.'

I was trying to work, but I noticed that people, if they had any inkling of the idea that I was sick or had MS... people shunned me. No work after that.

I've sold shows based on my standup twice to CBS, but they've never gone past the script stage. TV is very competitive.

On average, military spouses are significantly more educated than their civilian counterparts, but much more likely to be unemployed or underemployed.

Most of us got jobs right after 'The Larry Sanders Show' because of 'The Larry Sanders Show.' I know that for a fact for myself.

My main income came from failed movie and TV options.

There's a classic story I tell about when I did the Man Show about the retarded conversations that you have with the executive producers and the network.

In order to put it into perspective, as an actor, it's super hard to get on a TV show. If you get on one, it's super hard for that show to be reasonably successful. All of that, on paper, seems pretty special. It's the sum of the parts, really. To roll the dice and come up with this particular show is pretty fortunate. I'm very happy about Silicon Valley series. It's changed everything for me.

People have always said since TV was invented what a cultural wasteland it is but I think it is the worst and the best. It is the golden age of television.