Andy Rooney Quotes

#1. There was an interesting development in the CBS-Westmoreland trial:
both sides agreed that after the trial, Andy Rooney would be allowed to
talk to the jury for three minutes about little things that annoyed him
during the trial.

David Letterman

#2. Baby, Andy once said that beauty is a sign of intelligence.'
She turns slowly to look at me. 'Who, Victor? Who? Andy who?' She coughs, blowing her nose. 'Andy Kaufman? Andy Griffith? Who in the hell told you this? Andy Rooney?'
'Warhol,' I say softly, hurt. 'Baby ...

Bret Easton Ellis

#3. At the age of six, the criteria for handsome was simply: "Is he not related to me?" and "Have I seen him on television?" That was it. By this standard, Larry Bird, Dick Clark, and Andy Rooney. All handsome guys.

Mindy Kaling

#4. Walking is good for the soul.

Andy Rooney

#5. Do I have opinions that might piss people off? Yes - that's what I'm here for.

Andy Rooney

#6. Christians talk as though goodness was their idea but good behavior doesn't have any religious origin. Our prisons are filled with the devout.

Andy Rooney

#7. Let's face it, though, anything that's apt to happen to an appliance like a blender isn't covered by the warranty anyway, so I never send them in. If it breaks, I'll buy a new one. That's the American way.

Andy Rooney

#8. Death is a distant rumor to the young.

Andy Rooney

#9. One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."
~ (1919-), American writer, producer, humorist.

Andy Rooney

#10. The last birthday that's any good is 23.

Andy Rooney

#11. I'd like to take some calculus, too. I have absolutely no ability in that direction and not much interest, either, but there's something going on in mathematics that I don't understand, and I'd like to find out what it is.

Andy Rooney

#12. The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.

Andy Rooney

#13. The Super Bowl isn't for kids, I had a great time though and it was worth every nickel of it because by doing this lame piece about the game I can put it on my expense account.

Andy Rooney

#14. I've learned ... That I can always pray for someone when I don't have the strength to help him in some other way.

Andy Rooney

#15. I did not believe in the war. I thought it was wrong to go into any war. And I got to the war, and saw the Germans, and I changed my mind. I decided we were right going into World War II.

Andy Rooney

#16. The great virtue of being alone is that your mind can go its own way.

Andy Rooney

#17. I'm always on the lookout for something good about people. Often months go by.

Andy Rooney

#18. It's not so much that I write well, I just don't write badly very often and that passes for good on television.

Andy Rooney

#19. A writer's job is to tell the truth.

Andy Rooney

#20. People like to say, "You're only as old as you feel," but it isn't true. It's just something old people say to make themselves feel good about their age. You're as old as you are.

Andy Rooney

#21. We're all torn between the desire for privacy and the fear of lonliness. We need each other and we need to get away from each other. We need proximity and distance, conversation and silence. We almost always get more of each than we want at any one time.

Andy Rooney

#22. There are sixteen cans of coffee here; together they hold a total of thirteen and a half pounds of coffee. Doesn't that seem like cheating?

Andy Rooney

#23. I'm in a position of feeling secure enough so that I can say what I think is right and if so many people think it's wrong that I get fired, well, I've got enough to eat.

Andy Rooney

#24. The biggest seller is cookbooks and the second is diet books - how not to eat what you've just learned how to cook.

Andy Rooney

#25. Small daily happenings make life spectacular ... start enjoying the small things in life!

Andy Rooney

#26. In the futile attempts we all make to tidy up our lives and our surroundings, nothing is more difficult than throwing out a book.

Andy Rooney

#27. It is possible to be dumb and be a college president.

Andy Rooney

#28. The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

Andy Rooney

#29. If you put on an item of clothing that hurts just because you have an idea it looks better or conforms to what other people are wearing, it's dumb.

Andy Rooney

#30. When it comes to educating all of us about the most basic things in life, it seems to me we need more kindergartens and fewer graduate schools.

Andy Rooney

#31. We can all be prouder to be human beings, because that's what they were. They make up for a lot of liars, cheats, and terrorists among us.

Andy Rooney

#32. Love is more pleasant once you get out of your twenties. It doesn't hurt all the time.

Andy Rooney

#33. I mean, the notion that we must love everything in this country or get out and go someplace else is ridiculous. I mean, if you
the best thing a patriotic American can do is to look and be critical and find out what's wrong and try to make it better. That's what a patriotic American does.

Andy Rooney

#34. The best Christmas trees come very close to exceeding nature. If some of our great decorated trees had been grown in a remote forest area with lights that came on every evening as it grew dark, the whole world would come to look at them and marvel at the mystery of their great beauty.

Andy Rooney

#35. I've learned ... That having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world.

Andy Rooney

#36. I've learned ... That it's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

Andy Rooney

#37. Art is a by-product of an honest and successful attempt to do something well.

Andy Rooney

#38. People waiting for an elevator don't know what to do, standing with strangers. There is nothing to do. Its an uneasy time. Some press the button repeatedly as though it would help.

Andy Rooney

#39. If I'd known how many problems I was going to run into before I finished, I can't remember a single project I would have started.

Andy Rooney

#40. Don't take a butcher's advice on how to cook meat. If he knew, he'd be a chef.

Andy Rooney

#41. I'd be more willing to accept religion, even if I didn't believe it, if I thought it made people nicer to each other but I don't think it does.

Andy Rooney

#42. Space, like Switzerland, should be neutral.

Andy Rooney

#43. We all ought to understand we're on our own. Believing in Santa Claus doesn't do kids any harm for a few years but it isn't smart for them to continue waiting all their lives for him to come down the chimney with something wonderful. Santa Claus and God are cousins.

Andy Rooney

#44. The third rule of life is this: Everything you buy today is smaller, more expensive, and not as good as it was yesterday.

Andy Rooney

#45. Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens.

Andy Rooney

#46. The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.

Andy Rooney

#47. One of the things we can be sure of over the July 4th weekend is that news reports will keep telling us how many of us are going to die in automobile accidents.

Andy Rooney

#48. Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.

Andy Rooney

#49. I hope all of you are going to fill out your census form when it comes in the mail next month. If you don't return the form the area you live in might get less government money and you wouldn't want that to happen, would you.

Andy Rooney

#50. I don't know anything offhand that mystifies Americans more than the cotton they put in pill bottles. Why do they do it? Are you supposed to put the cotton back in once you've taken a pill out?

Andy Rooney

#51. It's ridiculous for a country to get all worked up about a game - except the Super Bowl, of course. Now that's important.

Andy Rooney

#52. The dullest Olympic sport is curling, whatever 'curling' means.

Andy Rooney

#53. Dogs are nicer than people.

Andy Rooney

#54. I'm already suspicious of anyone who thinks he or she is smart enough to be president. You'd have to have some ego to believe that about yourself.

Andy Rooney

#55. We've sent a man to the moon and that's 29,000 miles away. The center of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week but for some reason nobody's ever done it.

Andy Rooney

#56. I've learned ... That simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.

Andy Rooney

#57. I just wish this social institution [religion] wasn't based on what appears to me to be a monumental hoax built on an accumulation of customs and myths directed toward proving something that isn't true.

Andy Rooney

#58. Person-to-person, most people are honest.

Andy Rooney

#59. Civilization means conforming to a standard of behavior that may not seem natural to us.

Andy Rooney

#60. I'm an admirer of everything Dr. Martin Luther King stood for, but I don't think he would have stood for this

Andy Rooney

#61. There are more beauty parlors than there are beauties.

Andy Rooney

#62. Numbers are the most certain things we have.

Andy Rooney

#63. I've learned that under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.

Andy Rooney

#64. The closing of a door can bring blessed privacy and comfort - the opening, terror. Conversely, the closing of a door can be a sad and final thing - the opening a wonderfully joyous moment.

Andy Rooney

#65. My mother always called me 'sturdy' and said I have big bones. A little fat is what I am.

Andy Rooney

#66. I dislike loud-mouthed patriots who think they like our country more than I do. Some people's idea of patriotism is hating other countries.

Andy Rooney

#67. When those waiters ask me if I want some fresh ground pepper, I ask if they have any aged pepper.

Andy Rooney

#68. If you do see me in a restaurant, please, just let me eat my dinner.

Andy Rooney

#69. I hate to say it, but I had a great time in World War II.

Andy Rooney

#70. I've learned ... That you should never say no to a gift from a child.

Andy Rooney

#71. A woman over 30 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, "What are you thinking?". She doesn't care what you think.

Andy Rooney

#72. We're all proud of making little mistakes. It gives us the feeling we don't make any big ones.

Andy Rooney

#73. Sooner or later the world will have to return to the good old days when we fought wars and killed people the old-fashioned way, one at a time.

Andy Rooney

#74. In spite of some bad experiences, I'm a firm believer in the trial and error method of learning.

Andy Rooney

#75. No matter what any of the grammar teachers say, punctuation is an arbitrary matter. It should be used to make sentences clear.

Andy Rooney

#76. No one likes the house next door to look worse or a lot better than his own.

Andy Rooney

#77. Great teachers are usually a little crazy.

Andy Rooney

#78. I obviously have a knack for getting on paper what a lot of people have thought and didn't realize they thought. And they say, 'Hey, yeah!' And they like that.

Andy Rooney

#79. Let's make a statement to the airlines just to get their attention. We'll pick a week next year and we'll all agree not to go anywhere for seven days.

Andy Rooney

#80. I know a lot of you believe that most people in the news business are liberal. Let me tell you, I know a lot of them, and they were almost evenly divided this time. Half of them liked Senator Kerry; the other half hated President Bush.

Andy Rooney

#81. The fastest thing computers do is go obsolete.

Andy Rooney

#82. Milk without fat is like nonalcoholic Scotch.

Andy Rooney

#83. Obscenities ... I think a lot of dumb people do it because they can't think of what they want to say and they're frustrated. A lot of smart people do it to pretend they aren't very smart - want to be just one of the boys.

Andy Rooney

#84. I mean, I'm not a sexist person, but a woman has no business being down there trying to make some comment about a football game.

Andy Rooney

#85. The average bright young man who is drafted hates the whole business because an army always tries to eliminate the individual differences in men.

Andy Rooney

#86. Vegetarian: Indian word for lousy hunter.

Andy Rooney

#87. I've learned ... That one should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he may have to eat them.

Andy Rooney

#88. You can't be a good writer without being a good thinker.

Andy Rooney

#89. All of us talk faster than we listen.

Andy Rooney

#90. If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it.

Andy Rooney

#91. It's best to give advice in only two circumstances; when it's requested, and when it's a life threatening situation.

Andy Rooney

#92. Taxes are important. President Bush's tax proposals leave no rich person behind. Voters approve of President Bush helping the kind of people they wish they were one of.

Andy Rooney

#93. It isn't working that's so hard, it's getting ready to work.

Andy Rooney

#94. Conservatives are more religious than liberals
although there is no evidence that they're nicer people because of it.

Andy Rooney

#95. I've learned ... That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am.

Andy Rooney

#96. I had one typewriter for 50 years, but I have bought seven computers in six years. I suppose that's why Bill Gates is rich, and Underwood is out of business.

Andy Rooney

#97. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of 40 +, there is a balding, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year-old waitress.

Andy Rooney

#98. Creativity is a by-product of hard work. If I never have another really new idea, it won't matter.

Andy Rooney

#99. I don't differentiate much, except in degree, between people who believe in religion from those who believe in astrology, magic or the supernatural.

Andy Rooney

#100. Figure skating is an unlikely Olympic event but its good television. It's sort of a combination of gymnastics and ballet. A little sexy too which doesn't hurt.

Andy Rooney