Phil Donahue Quotations

Airlines are interesting. They not only favor celebrities, they court them.

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

I was proud of the waves I had made, but wondered how many boats I was supposed to rock.

Spanking and verbal criticism have become, to many parents, more important tools of child rearing than approval.

Some people are uncomfortable with the idea that humans belong to the same class of animals as cats and cows and raccoons. They're like the people who become successful and then don't want to be reminded of the old neighborhood.

I have moved from certainty to doubt, from devotion to rebellion.

Recognition should come to the reporter who uncovers public cheating or proves a convicted man innocent.

Is it any wonder that for millions of men the only intimacy is physical, silent, and predictable?

I think the idea of creating a television news source that is not beholden to corporate interests is nirvana.

Presenting statues of honor to reporters for covering an earthquake is like presenting a first prize to a doctor for performing surgery.

In reality, the most important things happen when you don't look for them.

Television is not the exclusive target of promoters. Is Superman really worthy of a Newsweek cover?

To a journalist, good news is often not news at all.

Oprah is more than an institution. Oprah is a very special star in the firmament. I can't imagine a greater success than she's enjoyed.

The system of volunteerism is divisive. It pits one charity against the others for the charity dollar.

Marlo taught me things I thought I knew.

They were terrified that we were going to become an anti-war kind of platform.

In a network situation, a vice president, while he's shaving, can decide your history.

A large psychic void is left by a loss of faith. So many Catholics have tried so many things to replace it.

The Tube is a vehicle for selling things, not for exploring ideas.

Everybody is under pressure to shut up and sing.

I believe celebrity spoils people - some worse than others.

I find celebrity status difficult to bear when I am in the company of my mother.

I tip like crazy. Theyll remember me. Celebrity can be expensive.

We should not use crippled children to sell hamburgers. Ever.

When I was a kid, people who got divorced were people who had no gumption.

When we had been married five years, we had six children. What, in God's name, was wrong with me?

I see all those Solomons out there, I can't wait to hear your wisdom.

We'll be staying right here in the neighborhood, ... We're not leaving Westport.

We'll be staying right here in the neighborhood,

That opening bar summoned children all over the world to the television set. Its purity is its strength.

Your nephew. Very good, very good. Congratulations, you should be proud.

This is not what the founders intended. We want a real campaign.

... You can't intimidate me. I'm not somebody you can come and just spew all your (inaudible...

It's a mistake. It was poorly planned and poorly executed but Bill O'Reilly wants to send more kids to fight and die.

In order to keep this feather in the air - and that's what it is - my people have to stay on fire creatively.

I remember enjoying the woods when I was a child, but I never had the opportunity to really understand it. I want my grandchildren to not only enjoy the environment, but be curious about it and appreciate its vulnerability.

How many more men and women are you going to send to have their arms and legs blown off so that you can be tough and point at people in a kind of cowardly way?

Will you remember me when I'm gone?

There is no democracy without dissent.

In 1953 there were two ways for an Irish Catholic boy to impress his parents: become a priest or attend Notre Dame.

If Stalin ever told me to urinate, I'm not sure I'd be able to....

At first, I thoroughly enjoyed being famous.

Cindy Sheehan is one tough mother and nothing you say or anyone else is gonna slow her down.

Women are smarter than men because they listen.

This is Sesame Street. A place where people, birds, monsters all live in perfect harmony.

I have had time to analyze my feelings. I am certain that they are totally neurotic, sexist, silly, and a big waste of time.

Its like threading a needle while walking on a water bed.

I certainly think we have an emergency in media, and we gotta fix it.

I realize what you can do when you scare the population and how media contributes to that.

December 25th has become guilt and obligation.

Praising the Lord and passing the ammunition are mutually exclusive ideas.

What really keeps me going is the constant belief that it could all disappear tomorrow.

[Asserting] important First Amendment rights ... why should [executions] be the one area that is conducted behind closed doors?... Why shouldn't executions be public?

I could never understand how we could put 120,000 Japanese behind a fence in World War II. I remember being bewildered about that.

I have been in the witness protection program for the last three weeks. I campaigned for Ralph Nader. I'm now living as a woman in Mississippi.

I'm not a pacifist. I'm not that brave.

The Commission on Presidential Debates is a corrupt stranglehold on our democracy.

There's a reason we seperate Church and State. The reason for the richness and the diversity of religion in this nation is because of the seperation of Church and State, and there are people out there who can't wait to make this nation a nation of one religion... THEIR religion.

The biggest threat to this country isn't the Russians. It's our own inability to make democracy or capitalism work.

The establishment people tell us that if the workers wanted to share the profits, it was called communism. When management wants to share profits, it's called a bonus.

The radio of my youth ... is now a quaint memory replaced by computer hard drives.

Science may have come a long way, but as far as religion is concerned, we are first cousins to the !Kung tribesmen of the Kalahari Desert. Except for the garments, their deep religious trances might just as well be happening at a revival meeting or in the congregation of a fundamentalist TV preacher.... As we move further from the life of ignorance and superstition in which religion has its roots, we seem to need it more and more.... Why has religion become a force just when we'd have thought it would be losing ground to secularism?

Miss Child is never bashful with butter.

The House looks like more fun. It's like the Donahue show. The Senate is like one of those Sunday morning public service programs.

We [in USA] have people honestly believing that, if a president calls a war, you have to shut up and sing. That is not the nation my mother raised me to pledge my allegiance to. We should speak out. We sent thousands of Americans to foreign battlefields to protect our way of life, which includes free speech. If you're not going to use it, it's already lost. We'll find a Mussolini who will tell us what's good for us.