Top 35 Linda Ellerbee Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Media literacy is not just important, it’s absolutely critical. It’s going to make the difference between whether kids are a tool of the mass media or whether the mass media is a tool for kids to use.”

— Linda Ellerbee

2. “In the coldest February, as in every other month in every other year, the best thing to hold on to in this world is each other.”

— Linda Ellerbee

3. “Only dead fish swim with the stream all of the time...”

— Linda Ellerbee

4. “A good time to laugh is any time you can.”

— Linda Ellerbee

5. “And so it goes.”

— Linda Ellerbee

6. “If men can run the world, why can’t they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?”

— Linda Ellerbee

7. “Always remember to set a place at the table of life for the unexpected guest.”

— Linda Ellerbee

8. “What I like most about change is that it’s a synonym for ‘hope’.”

— Linda Ellerbee

9. “There are two types of change: the change we choose and the change that chooses us.”

— Linda Ellerbee

10. “If you believe in your heart that you are right, you must fight with all your might to do it your way. Only dead fish swim with the stream all the time.”

— Linda Ellerbee

11. “I have always felt that laughter in the face of reality is probably the finest sound there is and will last until the day when the game is called on account of darkness. In this world, a good time to laugh is any time you can.”

— Linda Ellerbee

12. “People are pretty much alike. It’s only that our differences are more susceptible to definition than our similarities.”

— Linda Ellerbee

13. “It’s not brain surgery. It’s not nuclear physics. It’s television. It’s only television.”

— Linda Ellerbee

14. “I believe in tomorrow and I will be part of it.”

— Linda Ellerbee

15. “Time doesn’t go. Time stays. We go.”

— Linda Ellerbee

16. “When there is good news, and it is news, we do report it, but usually news is a record of human failure. Those wanting to celebrate human accomplishment are, as someone said, advised to go to the sports section.”

— Linda Ellerbee

17. “Styles, like everything else, change. Style doesn’t.”

— Linda Ellerbee

18. “A few weeks after my surgery, I went out to play catch with my golden retriever. When I bent over to pick up the ball, my prosthesis fell out. The dog snatched it, and I found myself chasing him down the road yelling “Hey, come back here with my breast!””

— Linda Ellerbee

19. “Dreck is dreck and no amount of fancy polish is going to make it anything else.”

— Linda Ellerbee

20. “Some of my colleagues want to be The Anchorman on the Mount. Others see themselves as the Ace Reporter. Because of 60 Minutes, there’s a whole herd of them determined to be The Grand Inquisitor and a heady number want only to be The Friendliest Anchor on the Block. At least one wants to be Jesus.”

— Linda Ellerbee

21. “When the anchorman is wearing a colonel’s uniform, it tells you something.”

— Linda Ellerbee

22. “The whole town looks as if it had been left out in the rain too long and by mistake.”

— Linda Ellerbee

23. “Like Nietzsche, I believe that without music, life would be a mistake. Nothing but silence says it better.”

— Linda Ellerbee

24. “I think laughter may be a form of courage.”

— Linda Ellerbee

25. “It’s not just the cheerleading thing I have a problem with, it’s the whole jock enchilada. I’m all for a good game of basketball in teh driveway or a killer bike ride. But when there’s tackling and grunting involved – no thanks.”

— Linda Ellerbee

26. “Just because it’s a rat race doesn’t mean it’s okay to be a rat.”

— Linda Ellerbee

27. “We tried to do the news without frills, without fluffy hairdos, without graphics. It does say something about our business that is not very pretty. It didn’t matter how good the show was. What counted was money.”

— Linda Ellerbee

28. “Putting people in a room and strapping wires to their wrist to find out if I make them tingle when I’m telling them about Beirut is a long way from Edward R. Murrow.”

— Linda Ellerbee

29. “I think laughter may be a form of courage As humans we sometimes stand tall and look into the sun and laugh, and I think we are never more brave than when we do that.”

— Linda Ellerbee

30. “Presumably a movement is more polite than a revolution, and a lot slower.”

— Linda Ellerbee

31. “I’ve heard it said that the first law of journalism is to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it.”

— Linda Ellerbee

32. “I want to know why, if men rule the world, they don’t stop wearing neckties.”

— Linda Ellerbee

33. “The new national campfire – radio.”

— Linda Ellerbee

34. “Pitching was about fooling people, manipulating them, making them believe in something that ultimately wasn’t there. Great pitching was great lying.”

— Linda Ellerbee

35. “I was raised by and have raised people who regard telling one story when two would do as a sign someone is not really trying.”

— Linda Ellerbee

36. “Change, like youth, is purely wasted on the young.”

— Linda Ellerbee