Joan Ganz Cooney Quotes

#1. I did not even go to kindergarten; I just started first grade when I was five and started reading right away. I don't know how it all worked, but I had a lot of adults and older siblings around me. So, I guess I was probably introduced to what one would be introduced to at that time in kindergarten.

Joan Ganz Cooney

#2. There is a young and impressionable mind out there that is hungry for information. It has latched on to an electronic tube as its main source of nourishment.

Joan Ganz Cooney

#3. I wish I could tell you that the Children's Television Workshop and Sesame Street were thanks to my genius, but it really was a lucky break.

Joan Ganz Cooney

#4. It's not whether children learn from television, it's what children learn from television ... because everything that children see on television is teaching them something.

Joan Ganz Cooney

#5. My degree was in education, but the idea of being a teacher lost out to being a reporter. I worked at a newspaper for a while, then went to New York and worked in PR at RCA and NBC, and at 'The United States Steel Hour,' a drama series.

Joan Ganz Cooney

#6. Big Bird was the biggest star, I mean, children's favorite for a number of years. I have a 22-year-old granddaughter whose first words were 'Big Bird.'

Joan Ganz Cooney

#7. Probably any successful career has X number of breaks in it, and maybe the difference between successful people and those who aren't super achievers is taking advantage of those breaks.

Joan Ganz Cooney

#8. Cherishing children is the mark of a civilized society.

Joan Ganz Cooney

#9. In South Africa, where HIV-positive children are often shunned, we have an HIV-positive Muppet to teach children to be friendly with children with HIV. But they use local actors. And it's not always a street. Sometimes it's 'Sesame Plaza,' or 'Sesame Tree.'

Joan Ganz Cooney

#10. I was brought up Catholic, and even as a little girl I was affected by the idea of giving back - doing something for the needy, something of significance.

Joan Ganz Cooney

#11. The question for me was, could TV actually teach? I knew it could, because I knew 3-year-olds who sang beer commercials!

Joan Ganz Cooney

#12. I thought it was quintessentially American - very hip, very late-'60s. I was absolutely stunned when a German production company asked me if I could do a 'Sesame Street' in Germany. It was absolutely the happiest surprise.

Joan Ganz Cooney