Andy Rooney Quotes:

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

Topics: Love, Happiness, Smile, Keep Smiling, Just Keep Smiling

Bacon is clearly a food made by the Nazis to fatten up Americans. It has no nutritional value, is full of fat, sodium, and nitrates, and is a pathetic type of consumable made from the noblest of creatures.

Topics: Sodium, Nazi, Made

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

Topics: Inspirational, Dog, Silly, Niceness, I Love My Dog

If you get murdered because you go on a date with someone you met on the Internet, you probably deserved it.

Topics: Goes On, Internet, Mets

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

Topics: Inspirational, Happiness, Business, Happier Life, Just Be Happy

Where some people may see loving grandparents, I see a pair of feckless ***** who can't drive, take way too long to shop, and don't even have the most basic grasps on the new technology. As a staunch supporter of the principles of Darwinism, I think that advances in modern medicine are starting to overrule the survival of the fittest, and it's to our [youngers'] detriment.

Topics: Technology, Thinking, Medicine, Feckless, Survival Of The Fittest

People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.

source: - Andy Rooney (2009). “Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit”, p.259, PublicAffairs

Topics: Believe, People, Facts

If you don't enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you're not going to be happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn't going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.

Topics: Happiness, Inspiring, Time, Key To Happiness, Others Happiness

Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.

Topics: Teacher, People, Literature, Inspirational Teacher, Teachers And Teaching

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

Topics: Shells, Want, Appreciated

Being kind is more important than being right.

Topics: Important, Be Kind, Kind

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.

Topics: Atheist, Believe, Thinking

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

Topics: Education, Elderly, Feet

Elephants and grandchildren never forget.

Topics: Grandmother, Grandchildren, Elephants, My Grandfather, Mother And Grandmother

I just wish this social institution [religion] wasnt based on what appears to me to be a monumental hoax built on an accumulation of customs and myths directed toward proving something that isnt true.

Topics: Wish, Hoaxes, Social, Social Institutions

A writer's job is to tell the truth.

Topics: Jobs, Telling The Truth

I can't choose how i feel. But i can choose what I do about it.

Topics: Feels

I've learned ... that no one is perfect until you fall in love with them.

Topics: Marriage, Falling In Love, Perfect, Falling In Love With You, I Fell In Love With You

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.

Topics: Cousin, Atheist, Smart

I've learned... that just one person saying to me, 'You've made my day!' makes my day.

Topics: Appreciation, Made

Age is nothing but experience, and some of us are more experienced than others

Topics: Age, Experience

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

Topics: Christian, Religious, Ideas, Good Behavior

I don't pick subjects as much as they pick me.

Topics: Literature, Pick Me, Subjects

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

Topics: Hate, Army, Men, Individual Differences

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

Topics: Children, Should

I've learned... That sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

Topics: Heart, Hands, Needs

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

Topics: Writing, Thinker

Death is a distant rumor to the young.

Topics: Death, Humor, Rumor, Death And Dying

We need people who can actually do things. We have too many bosses and too few workers.

Topics: People, Boss, Needs, Plumber, Electrician

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.

Topics: Confidence, Blessed, Doors

Don't rule out working with your hands. It does not preclude using your head.

Topics: Hands, Doe, Literature

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

Topics: People, Might, Opinion

I've learned .... That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.

Topics: Opportunity, Missing, Lost Someone, Missed Opportunity

I've learned that no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.

Topics: Matter, Serious, Needs, Friend In Need

The world must be filled with unsuccessful musical careers like mine, and it's probably a good thing. We don't need a lot of bad musicians filling the air with unnecessary sounds. Some of the professionals are bad enough.

Topics: Music, Air, Careers, Unsuccessful

I am not retiring. Writers don't retire. Writers never stop writing.

Topics: Writing, Retiring

I've learned... That when your newly born grandchild holds your little finger in his little fist, that you're hooked for life.

Topics: Grandchildren, Fists, Littles

I've learned... That love, not time, heals all wounds.

Topics: Time Heals, Wounds, Love Heals, Time Heals All, Time Heals All Wounds

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

Topics: People, Way

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

Topics: Mother, Littles, Bones

Those to whom his word was revealed were always alone in some remote place, like Moses. There wasn't anyone else around when Mohammed got the word either. Mormon Joseph Smith and Christian Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy, had exclusive audiences with God. We have to trust them as reporters--and you know how reporters are. They'll do anything for a story.

Topics: Christian, Religion, Atheism, Always Alone, Remote Places

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

Topics: Want, Peppers, Ask Me, Waiter

Half the cookbooks tell you how to cook the food and the other half tell you how to avoid eating it.

Topics: Food, Half, Eating, Cookbook

Nothing in fine print is ever good news.

Topics: News, Literature, Fine, Fine Print

Never trust the food in a restaurant on top of the tallest building in town that spends a lot of time folding napkins.

Topics: Towns, Napkins, Never Trust

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

Topics: Atheist, Believe, Astrology, Differentiate

The two biggest sellers in any bookstore are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food, and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it!

Topics: Fitness, Book, Two, Cookbook, Funny Diet

Why am I an atheist? I ask you: Why is anybody not an atheist? Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated. I resent anyone pushing their religion on me. I don't push my atheism on anybody else. Live and let live. Not many people practice that when it comes to religion.

Topics: Atheist, Practice, People

I've learned .... That when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

Topics: Docks, Bitterness

Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

Topics: Sweet, Keeping Your Word, Cases, Speak Softly

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

Topics: Book, Loss, Cooks, Cookbook, Inspirational Weight Loss

Writers don't retire. I will always be a writer.

Topics: Powerful, Writing, Retiring

It's paradoxical, that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.

Topics: Funny Life, Ideas, Long

I didn't get old on purpose, it just happened. If you're lucky, it could happen to you.

source: - "Factbox: Quotes from '60 Minutes' commentator Andy Rooney". Compiled by Bill Trott, www.reuters.com. November 05, 2011.

Topics: Funny Life, Age, Lucky

I don't like food that's too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a painting.

Topics: Food, Thinking, Cooking, Not Enough Time, Pastry Chef

If dogs could talk it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one.

Topics: Dog, Fun, Pet, Inspirational Dog, Pet Dog

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

Topics: Happiness, Happy, Strikes, Three Strikes

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.

Topics: Witty, Work, Technology, Hardware, Computer Hacking

Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?", here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

Topics: Women, Smart, Yellow, Stunning, Relics

If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.

Topics: Flower, Naps, Hands

Ugly is very popular this year...I had a feeling these clothes were deigned by someone who didn't like women.

Topics: Years, Clothes, Feelings

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.

Topics: Way, Faces, Modern Life, Warranty, Appliances

Before a kid learns how to use a computer that can solve mathematical problems, he or she should know how to do arithmetic without a computer.

Topics: Kids, Use, Computer, Mathematical Problems

Numbers are the most certain things we have.

Topics: Numbers, Mathematics, Certain

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.

Topics: Mathematics, Calculus, Ability

Once you pass forty, a dime isn't worth bending over to pick up if you drop one.

Topics: Money, Dimes, Bending, Bending Over

When I write, I use an Underwood #5 made in 1920. Someone gave me an electric typewriter, but there's no use pretending you can use machinery that thinks faster than you do. An electric typewriter is ready to go before I have anything to say.

Topics: Writing, Thinking, Typewriters

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

Topics: Learning, Errors, Trial And Error, Bad Experiences

My advice is not to wait to be struck by an idea. If you're a writer, you sit down and damn well decide to have an idea. That's the way to get an idea.

Topics: Ideas, Waiting, Advice

American closets are filled with once-worn clothes that got a bad review from a friend on their first appearance.

Topics: Clothes, Firsts, Appearance, Bad Reviews

Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated.

Topics: Atheist, Belief, Born

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.

Topics: Distance, Silence, Desire, Away From Each Other, We Need Each Other

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.

Topics: Hurt, Ideas, People

I like animals who trust people.

Topics: Animal, People

Soap, like people, shouldn't smell like anything.

Topics: Smell, People, Soap

We aren't consistent in our treatment of animals.

Topics: Animal, Treatment, Consistent, Treatment Of Animals

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

Topics: Art, Successful, Honest

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.

source: - Source: rocknycliveandrecorded.com

Topics: People, Feel Good, Age

By the time they're ready to be thrown away, most shoes are thoroughly comfortable

Topics: Inspiration, Shoes, Ready

Last night we had three small zucchini for dinner that were grown within fifty feet of our back door. I estimate they cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $371.49 each.

Topics: Night, Zucchini, Doors

Looking and not finding is certainly one of the most frustrating ways to spend time.

Topics: Loss, Way, Frustrating

Phyllis Schlafly speaks for all American women who oppose equal rights for themselves.

Topics: Rights, Speak, Equal Rights

Democrats believe people are basically good but must be saved from themselves by the government. Republicans believe people are basically bad but they'll be okay if they're left alone.

Topics: Believe, Government, People

Don't you hate it when...your suitcase is the last one off the airplane?

Topics: Travel, Hate, Airplane

I'd like to be rich enough so I could throw soap away after the letters are worn off

Topics: Letters, Soap, Rich

Numbers tend to give the impression that there's more order in the world than there is.

Topics: Order, Numbers, Giving

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

Topics: Doors, House, Looks

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

Topics: Religious, People, Evidence

I never understood retirement. What is the attraction of retirement? I go down there to Florida and look around and I said, my God, who wants this? Not me.

Topics: Retirement, Florida, Looks

Almost all of us have an elevator or two in our lives somewhere. We wait for them, we ride on them. We're annoyed by the wait but pleased with the lift.

Topics: Two, Annoyed, Waiting

I try to look nice. I comb my hair, I tie my tie, I put on a jacket, but I draw the line when it comes to trimming my eyebrows. You work with what you got.

Topics: Nice, Hair, Eyebrows, Combs, Trimming

There are only a few safe targets left, just a few groups of people you can say anything negative about without getting in trouble for it. I've made a list of safe targets and I probably ought to stick to those. Politicians, for instance. You can say anything you want about them, and it doesn't matter how unfair you are. People seem to like it.

Topics: People, Say Anything, Groups

The one affectation I have forced on the publisher ... are my apostrophe-free ellisions. Because I write my scripts to read myself, I dont spell 'don't' with an apostrophe. I spell it 'dont'. We all know the word and it seems foolish to put in an extraneous apostrophe. Punctuation marks are devices we use to make the meaning of sentences clear. There is nothing confusing about a word like 'dont' printed without an apostrophe to indicate an omitted letter.

Topics: Writing, Confusing, Use, Punctuation Marks, Publishers

I like Valentine's Day. The trouble is the florists and the candy-makers and the card people are all advertising so much, you don't dare let the day go by without making an offering, whether you mean it or not. Money exceeds affection.

Topics: Valentine, Mean, Offering

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.

Topics: People, Waiting, Buttons

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.

Topics: Country, Mean, Patriotic, American Patriotic

I just sat there looking at television, sort of dumb and thought how horrible it was. I had -- the grand aspects of it did not occur to me -- I had no notion of this terrorist network that existed. I knew the were a lot of people in the world who didn't like us, but I had no idea that it was as well organized as it apparently is. That's one of the amazing facets of this terrible event: how well they did it. Incredible. The competence of these evil people.

Topics: Ideas, People, Evil, Terrible Events

Republicans ... are conservatives who think it would be best if we faced the fact that people are no damned good. They think that if we admit that we have selfish, acquisitive natures and then set out to get all we can for ourselves by working hard for it, that things will be better for everyone. They are not insensitive to the poor, but tend to think the poor are impoverished because they won't work. They think there would be fewer of them to feel sorry for if the government did not encourage the proliferation of the least fit among us with welfare programs.

Topics: Sorry, Selfish, Thinking, Welfare Programs

Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.

Topics: Baseball, Gun, Thinking

Vegetarian: Indian word for lousy hunter.

Topics: Hunters, Vegetarian, Culinary

One of the sweetest things in life: a letter from a friend.

Topics: Letters, Sweetest

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.

Topics: Dark, Light, Tree, Christmas Tree

In Washington, a confidential assistant is someone who, if you don't want to know something, you go and ask him and he won't tell you.

Topics: Government, Want, Assistants, Confidential

I've learned... that we should be glad God doesn't give us everything we ask for.

Topics: Giving, Desire, Things I've Learned

Anyone should be very suspicious of a sentence he's written that can't be read aloud easily.

Topics: Writing, Should, Sentences

Most of us aren't that interested in getting rich- we just don't want to get poor.

Topics: Want, Wealth, Rich

We're all torn between the desire for privacy and the fear of loneliness.

Topics: Loneliness, Desire, Privacy

Those of us who don't have a party affiliation ought to be able to register under the heading "Confused.

Topics: Confused, Party, Politics

Unfortunately, propaganda works.

Topics: Propaganda

There's nothing people like better than being asked an easy question. For some reason, we're flattered when a stranger asks us where Maple Street is in our hometown and we can tell him.

Topics: People, Questions And Answers, Hometown, Maple

There is obviously a great human need for religion because life seems to be such a mystery.

Topics: Religion, Needs, Mystery

Space, like Switzerland, should be neutral.

Topics: Space, Switzerland, Should

My most serious character flaw is that I don't deny myself much.

Topics: Character, Serious, Flaws, Character Flaws

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

Topics: Solitude, Mind, Way

Walking is good for the soul.

Topics: Soul, Walking

... all of us talk faster than we listen.

Topics: Faster

Don't keep saying, "I don't know where the time goes." It goes the same place it's always gone and no one has ever known where that is.

Topics: Time, Gone

Great teachers are usually a little crazy.

Topics: Teacher, Crazy, Teaching

The teacher who knows the most about a subject isn't necessarily the one who can teach it best.

Topics: Teacher, Teaching, Teach

Finding the tool is often half the battle.

Topics: Battle, Tools, Half

Everyone hates war, everyone says.

Topics: Hate, War

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.

Topics: War, People, World, Old Days, Good Old Days

All economists should be locked up until they admit that they don't know what they're talking about.

Topics: Education, Talking, Should

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

Topics: Advice, Meat, Chef, Butchers

All men are not created equal but should be treated as though they were under the law.

Topics: Men, Law, Literature

I like ice hockey, but it's a frustrating game to watch. It's hard to keep your eyes on both the puck and the players and too much time passes between scoring in hockey. There are usually more fights than there are points.

Topics: Eye, Fighting, Hockey

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.

Topics: People, Hey, Knack

Writers don't often say anything that readers don't already know, unless its a news story. A writer's greatest pleasure is revealing to people things they knew but did not know they knew. Or did not realize everyone else knew, too. This produces a warm sense of fellow feeling and is the best a writer can do.

Topics: People, Feelings, Say Anything, Fellow Feeling

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

source: - "Discovering Everyday Good Things". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 2, 1995.

Topics: People, Months

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.

Topics: Christmas, World, Rooms, Humorous Christmas, Meaningful Christmas

I've learned that life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

Topics: Life, Paper, Toilets, Toilet Paper

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.

Topics: Breakup, Smart, Years

Every one starts out being an atheist.

Topics: Atheist

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?

Topics: Cheating, Coffee, Together

You really can't blame the military for wanting to go to war [in Iraq]. They've got all these new toys and they want to know whether they work or not.

Topics: Funny, Military, War, New Toys

The last birthday that's any good is 23.

Topics: Age, Lasts

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.

Topics: Running, Wrestling, Remember

I've learned... that everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.

Topics: Attitude, Deserve

My wife uses fabric softener. I never knew what that stuff was for. Then I noticed women coming up to me, sniffing, then saying under their breath, "Married!" and walking away. Fabric Softeners are how our wives mark their territory. We can take off the ring, but it's hard to get that April fresh scent out of your clothes.

Topics: Walking Away, Clothes, Wife, Sniffing

We need people who can actually do things. We have too many bosses and too few workers. More college graduates ought to become plumbers or electricians, then go home at night and read Shakespeare.

Topics: Home, Night, College

Not many people in this world are as lucky as I've been. ... All this time I've been paid to say what is on my mind on television. You don't get any luckier in life than that.

Topics: People, Mind, Lucky

I've learned... That when you're in love, it shows.

Topics: Shows

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.

Topics: Government, Want, Might, Census

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.

Topics: Kids, Games, Lame, Had A Great Time, Nickels

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.

Topics: Thinking, People, Feelings

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.

Topics: Smart, Boys, Thinking, Very Smart, Smart People

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

Topics: Mistake, Giving, Feelings

Making duplicate copies and computer printouts of things no one wanted even one of in the first place is giving America a new sense of purpose.

Topics: Technology, America, Firefighter, Duplicate

Anyone who watches golf on television would enjoy watching the grass grow on the greens.

Topics: Funny, Golf, Watches

Would a real man get caught eating a twinkie?

Topics: Real, Men, Eating, Real Men

I just wish we knew a little less about his urethra and a little more about his arms sales to Iran.

Topics: Iran, Wish, Literature

Computers may save time but they sure waste a lot of paper. About 98 percent of everything printed out by a computer is garbage that no one ever reads.

Topics: Literature, Paper, May

My own time is passing fast enough without some national game to help it along.

Topics: Games, Helping, Enough

The only people who say worse things about politicians that reporters do are other politicians.

Topics: People, Politician

As an old reporter, we have a few secrets, and the first thing is we try the phone book.

Topics: Book, Phones, Secret

I've learned.... That when you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you... More

Topics: Hurt, Forgiving, I've Learned

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

source: - "Great lines from "60 Minutes" commentator Andy Rooney". www.cnn.com. November 5, 2011.

Topics: Yesterday, Today, Life Is, Rules Of Life

I've learned... That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.

Topics: Doe, Facts, I've Learned

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.

source: - "Journalist Andy Rooney Dies at 92" by Joel Siegel, abcnews.go.com. November 05, 2011.

Topics: Typewriters, Years, Bills

Teachers who have plugged away at their jobs for twenty, thirty, and forty years are heroes. I suspect they know in their hearts they've done a good thing, too, and are more satisfied with themselves than most people are. Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.

Topics: Teacher, Jobs, Hero

Vegetarian - that's an old Indian word meaning lousy hunter.

Topics: Health, Vegetarianism, Safety, Vegetarian Food

A great many people do not have the right to their own opinion because they don't know what they are talking about.

source: - Andy Rooney (2009). “Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit”, p.256, PublicAffairs

Topics: Talking, People, Opinion

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

Topics: Inspiring, Things In Life, One Day At A Time, Small Things In Life

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

Topics: Way, Helping, Praying

In a conversation, keep in mind that you're more interested in what you have to say than anyone else is.

Topics: Mind, Conversation

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.

Topics: Life, Education, Humor, Probability Theory

Men wake up aroused in the morning. We can't help it. We just wake up and we want you. And the women are thinking, "How can he want me the way I look in the morning?" It's because we can't see you. We have no blood anywhere near our optic nerve.

Topics: Morning, Sex, Thinking, He Wants Me

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.

Topics: Education, School, Things In Life

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

Topics: I've Learned, I Have Learned, Spectacular

Most of us believe everyone has a right to his own opinion - as long as it agrees with ours.

Topics: Believe, Long, Opinion

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

Topics: Book, Surroundings, Throwing, Tidy

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

source: - "Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit".

Topics: Country, Hate, Thinking

Some people who hated Americans set out to kill a lot of us and they succeeded [on 9/11]....We're trying to protect ourselves with more weapons. We have to do it, I guess, but it might be better if we figured out how to behave as a nation in a way that wouldn't make so many people in the world want to kill us.

Topics: People, Trying, World

I've learned... That money doesn't buy class.

Topics: Class, I've Learned, I Have Learned

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

Topics: May, Tomorrow, I've Learned

Did you ever hear one of those corny, positive messages on someone's answering machine? 'Hi, it's a great day and I'm out enjoying it right now. I hope you are too. The thought for the day is share the love.' Beep. 'Uh, yeah, this is the VD clinic. Speaking of being positive, your test is back. Stop sharing the love.'

source: - "Curmudgeon Explains the Throne Speech" by Bill Tieleman, www.straight.com. February 17, 2005.

Topics: Being Positive, Great Day, Machines, Thought Of The Day, Positive Messages

Most of the people in the world are good and decent if you give them a chance to be.

Topics: People, Giving, World

A cat's idea of a 'good time' is to kill something.

Topics: Cat, Ideas, Good Times

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.

Topics: Night, Thinking, Wakes You, 30th Birthday

I've learned... That the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.

Topics: Done, I've Learned, I Have Learned, Things I've Learned

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.

Topics: Summer, Children, Father, Summer Nights

The fastest thing computers do is go obsolete.

Topics: Computer, Obsolete, Adaptability

Go to bed. Whatever you're staying up late for isn't worth it.

Topics: Bed, Late, Staying

I've learned... That life is tough, but I'm tougher.

Topics: Life, Tough, I've Learned, Life Is Tough

No one ever writes a book in which he is the bad guy.

Topics: Book, Writing, Guy, Bad Guys

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

source: - Andrew A. Rooney (2010). “Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit”, p.118, PublicAffairs

Topics: Delay, Ready, Hard

I understand shipping - you have to expect to pay for the stamps or for the freight company - but what's this handling they always have? How much does handling cost, anyway? I don't want a lot of people handling something I'm going to buy before I get it. How much would it cost if you didn't handle it before you sent it to me?

Topics: People, Doe, Cost, Shipping

There are more beauty parlors than there are beauties.

source: - Andrew A. Rooney (2010). “Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit”, p.261, PublicAffairs

Topics: Parlor

Believing is such a comfort that it's hard to give up a belief just because it isn't true.

Topics: Giving Up, Believe, Comfort

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

Topics: Children, Fall, Peaceful

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?

source: - "Great lines from "60 Minutes" commentator Andy Rooney". www.cnn.com. November 5, 2011.

Topics: Taken, Pills, Bottles

It would be a better world if everyone in it knew all the truth about everything.

source: - Andrew A. Rooney (2010). “Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit”, p.134, PublicAffairs

Topics: Would Be, World, Ifs

Have you noticed that they put advertisements in with your bills now? Like bills aren't distasteful enough, they have to stuff junk mail in there with them. I get back at them. I put garbage in with my check when I mail it in. Coffee grinds, banana peels...I write, "Could you throw this away for me?"

Topics: Coffee, Writing, Junk, Junk Mail

In the United States alone, we spend seven times as much on war as on education. There's something wrong there. On this Memorial Day, we should certainly honor those who have died at war, but we should dedicate this day, not so much to their memory, but to the search for a way to end the idiocy of the wars that killed them.

Topics: Memorial Day, Memories, War, Those Who Have Died

Familiar things are a comfort to us all.

Topics: Comfort, Familiar, Familiar Things

We should change our attitude toward the United Nations. There has to be some power in the world superior to our own. We should not have attacked Iraq without the okay of the United Nations. Now we have to live with that mistake. We're living with it, and too many of our guys are dying with it.

Topics: Change, Attitude, Mistake, Unesco

A little-recognized value of listening and inquiring relates to the realization that in human relationships, it is frequently not what the I've learned ... that it is best to give advice in only two circumstances: when it is requested and when it is a life-threatening situation.

Topics: Two, Giving, Advice

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

Topics: Mean, Civilization, May

The English language is more complex than calculus because numbers don't have nuances.

source: - Andrew A. Rooney (2010). “Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit”, p.110, PublicAffairs

Topics: Numbers, Nuance, Language

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

source: - "Andy Rooney Signs Off '60 Minutes' for Last Time: 'This Is a Moment I Have Dreaded'" by Kimberly Nordyke, www.hollywoodreporter.com. October 02, 2011.

Topics: Dinner, Restaurants, Let Me