Television

While reading several books by John Irving, these quotes jumped out at me:

“There is the faint, trapped warble from some televisions tuned in to The Late Show, and the blue-gray glow from the picture tubes throbs from a few of the houses. To Garp this glow looks like cancer, insidious and numbing, putting the world to sleep. Maybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer’s irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn’t reading."
- The World According to Garp

“Upon her arrival at the old age home, Grandmother considered that the remote-control device for switching television channels was a true child of Satan; it was television’s final triumph, she said, that it could render you brain-dead without even allowing you to leave your chair.”
- A Prayer for Owen Meany