Andy Rooney Quotes

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.

I spent my first 50 years trying to become known as a writer and the next 30 trying to avoid being famous. I walk down the street or go to a football game and people shout, 'Hey Andy'. I hate that.

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

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.

I never get over feeling bad about tearing open a beautifully wrapped present. It takes ten seconds to destroy a work of art that took someone ten minutes to accomplish.

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

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.

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

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

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

I am interested in details. If you go into anything far enough, you get into the details of it, and people turn out to be interested in what makes things work.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

The fastest thing computers do is go obsolete.

Familiar things are a comfort to us all.

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

Vegetarian: Indian word for lousy hunter.

Uh, yeah, this is the VD clinic calling. Speaking of being positive, your test is back. Stop sharing the love.

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

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.

I am an atheist... I don't understand religion at all. I'm sure I'll offend a lot of people by saying this, but I think it's all nonsense.

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.

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.

I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some governmental stooge with a bad comb-over who wants to give it away to crack addicts for squirting out babies.

Space, like Switzerland, should be neutral.

When there are starving people in the world, it seems wrong that so many of us Americans eat as much for entertainment as for nourishment.

Flying is always an unpleasant experience. You wait an hour for every ten minutes you actually spend getting anywhere.

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

There are more beauty parlors than there are beauties.

I just wish insignificance had more stature.

Everyone hates war, everyone says.

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

I like animals who trust people.

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

I think Dan [Rather] is transparently liberal. Now he may not like to hear me say that. I always agree with him, too. But I think he should be more careful.

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

I've done a lot of complaining here, but of all the things I've complained about, I can't complain about my life.

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

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.

You're better off missing a bus or an airplane once in a while than you are getting there too early all the time.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.