Murrow regarded television as a sound-equipped mirror held behind American society, reflecting its good and its bad, both only too real. He affixed to the electronic mirror a magnifying lens and a powerful focusing searchlight.

In an automobile civilization, which was one of constant motion and activity, there was almost no time to think; in a television one, there is small desire.

For all its flexibility, television is more a mirror of taste than a shaper of it.

Americans have never quite digested television. The mystique which should fade grows stronger. We make celebrities not only of the men who cause events but of the men who read reports of them aloud.

Over and over again, on every television set in Houston, George Bush was seen with his coat slung over a shoulder; his sleeves rolled up; walking the streets of his district; grinning, gripping, sweating, letting the voter know he cared. About what, was never made clear.

With the coming of television, and the knowledge of how it could be used to seduce voters, the old political values disappeared. Something new, murky, undefined started to rise from the mists.

The time is soon coming, thinks Rusty, when fornication will be professional athletics, and everybody will watch the national eliminations on TV.

Television was not intended to make human beings vacuous, but it is an emanation of their vacuity.

Many Americans feel themselves inferior in the presence of anyone with an English accent, which is why an English accent has become fashionable in television commercials; it is thought to sound authoritative.

Millions who endure poverty and bad government can now know what they are missing. To see how the other half lives all they have to do is switch on their television sets.