"In this nation, leadership is dollars." — Norman Lear

That's the heart of it: My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.

When we went on the air, I didn't want to be interrupted for an act-one curtain.

Nobody doubts my partisanship, but a lot of the activity is nonpartisan.

We got ratings. It isn't that they won't quarrel with you, or say you're always right. But as long as you stay strong and the ratings are good and you're reasonable - I don't think we fought unreasonably. We basically won that right.

But you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that's not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met.

There was no real controversy with All In The Family. That came from the people on the business end.

I wanted to just do a one-act play for 26 minutes, with commercials at the beginning and end. For years, I couldn't get my way. They wanted to interrupt three times.

We did an episode on Good Times which came out of a newspaper article about the incidence of hypertension in black males being higher than whites, and increasing. So we did a show in which James, the father on Good Times, had hypertension.

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In this nation, leadership is dollars.