Joan Cooney Quotes

#1. 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

#2. 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

#3. 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

#4. 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

#5. 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

#6. I just didn't know how much of this I was capable of. How far this - whatever it was - would actually go before old fears overshadowed the warmth.

J. Lynn

#7. In England, literary pretence is more universal than elsewhere from our method of education.

James Payn

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

Joan Ganz Cooney

#9. "Let is Roll" is like - well, it was like me thinking of a human being in its purest form. That form being a baby where there's nothing there - well, unless I guess you believe that something comes along attached. It depends on what you believe.

Ladyhawke

#10. The thriller genre in general, it's total foreign ground for me.

Katie Aselton

#11. I totally don't know what to do." He got up and started pacing. "Am I supposed to get you a present? Or maybe a card. I'm completely lost.

David Lubar

#12. 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

#13. 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

#14. I'm easy to look at, but so hard to see.

Oprah Winfrey

#15. I knew my mother's limitations because they formed the marrow of my bones.

Alice Sebold

#16. 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

#17. 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

#18. If you would be interesting, be interested, if you would be pleased, be pleasing, if you would be loved, be loveable, if you would be helped be helpful.

William Arthur Ward

#19. 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

#20. Everything means nothing to me

Elliott Smith

#21. 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