Roger Ailes Quotes

I look for something unique, and I look for people who haven’t reached their potential. I think I’m pretty good at developing talent.

Fox News Latino will show people how opportunities exist, that whenever we are overregulated, or there is too much government, we lose freedom. We lose power. That is, historically, one hundred percent true.

There are always people that will rise to the occasion when there is no occasion, but it is hard to find people will do it when there is.

I like talent. I respect talent. I teach talent.

There is a – deep down, underneath all the work I do, I think there’s a laziness in me.

In a capitalistic society, success is determined by whether you can pay the bills.

I’m not trying to be anyone. You know why other executives always hire phonies? Because they’re phonies. They hire phonies because they like phonies. They’re comfortable with them.

I can’t stand cruel people. And if I see people doing something mean to somebody else just to make themselves feel important, it really gets me mad.

If you’ve got a big star like O’Reilly, it does overshadow what the hard-news guys do during the day. That’s the nature of television.

I don’t tell Rupert Murdoch who to endorse.

I can’t look hip, but I don’t want to be hip.

The reality is, to watch Jon Stewart, you already have to have watched the news. In other words, it’s not funny if he does a joke about John McCain and they don’t know who John McCain is.

When I was in politics, I always got accused of image-making and trying to make them something they weren’t. Truth was – and nobody ever discovered it, although I was in that business for twenty years – what I was trying to do was to get them to be themselves.

I’ve been thanked a lot in Wendy’s, Applebee’s, and Marriot hotels, I’ve never been thanked in Le Cirque, for some reason. I try to spend as little time as possible in Le Cirque; that’s not because the food isn’t good… I’m not the kind of guy who likes to find his food under his parsley.

I would like to be on ‘Dancing with the Stars.’

What I think works for Fox News is we have a very direct form of communication.

I think liberals have a lot of good ideas, actually. But I’ve been pigeonholed, and I’m quite comfortable with it.

I’m a great believer in giving people a chance.

Everybody fears the unknown. But I have a strong feeling there’s something bigger than us. I don’t think all this exists because some rocks happened to collide. I’m at peace. When it comes, I’ll be fine, calm. I’ll miss life, though. Especially my family.

You cannot allow whether someone likes you or not to alter your course of action. Sometimes I think, ‘Sure, that hurts my feelings.’ But it’s not so important that I will adjust what I’m doing because someone is not going to like me.

I consider myself a freedom fighter, fighting for my clients.

People who watch news are pretty smart. Most of them don’t just go to one channel for all their news anyway.

I’ve never wanted my kid faced with the idea of, ‘Who’s the fat guy sitting in the living room? What the hell is he doing?’ I figure I might as well go to work so he can say his dad works.

Obama’s the one who never worked a day in his life. He never earned a penny that wasn’t public money. How many fund-raisers does he attend every week? How often does he play basketball and golf? I wish I had that kind of time.

My toughest job every day is maintaining intensity with myself and with my staff.

Fox News Latino has a mission to point out the positives of the Latino population, operating within the framework of making America great.

Listen, we elected Warren G. Harding. Anybody has a chance.

If somebody wants to book Alec Baldwin on one of our shows, and he wants to come on and talk to our people and say what he wants, I don’t care. We would question him on his choice of words.

I know there are limits to what a coach can accomplish in improving speechmaking unless the subject is a diligent student of himself.

Audiences are shifting. Platforms are shifting. Ages are shifting. It’s better to be in charge of change than to have to react to change.

CNN and MSNBC, our primary competitors, are trying to figure out how to beat us. There are some good, smart people at those networks, and even occasionally a blind pig finds an acorn.

Wolf Blitzer is an excellent reporter, but he’s not a star.

I quit politics because I hated it.

I didn’t give up my citizenship to create and run a news organization.

I don’t care about my legacy. It’s too late. My enemies will create it, and they’ll push it.

If somebody comes to me looking for a fight, they might get one.

I think almost everything in life is life-experience, personality-driven.

It would be a lie to say that I don’t care what people say about me. Every human being cares unless they’re nuts. Am I nuts? But you can’t allow that to override your mission.

I grew up in the era when Dan Rather hated Richard Nixon. He was a newsman, but you knew what his opinion was.

I happen to think that the Latino audience is an essentially traditional audience and will go to Fox News for traditional American values.

I like Bloomberg; he’s a friend.

All business is basically about customers and marketing and making money and capitalism and winning and promoting it and having something someone really wants.

I believe business news is general news.

Do I take alternative points of view? Yes, because all the media are going in another direction.

Who’s like Bill O’Reilly? If there was somebody like Bill O’Reilly, they’d be out there getting ratings. No matter how much the mainstream press dumps on him, the guy constantly delivers an interesting show. He’s unique.

The news business is simple, but it’s not easy to do well.

CNBC was completely in the dumper when I went there.

I don’t have any focus groups on talent and programming. If I need five people in a mall to be paid $40 to tell me how to do my job, I shouldn’t do my job.

Tell me who you want to see on the Left, and I’ll hire them. If you give me a big name that’s out there, that’s floating around and wants work, I’d be happy to hire them.

If people know you’ll go to any lengths for your client, they’re less likely to play games with you.

I don’t want my son to have to collect a bunch of ‘New York Times’ articles to see what I was like.

I did what I did. I went against the grain. And I understand that I would be criticized. Those were all choices.

Television and I grew up together.

There are more conservatives on Fox. But we are not a conservative network.

I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings.

I have a good eye for talent, and my talent performs the best.

A guy who gets fired and humiliated in the press can lose a lot of confidence.

I want to prove that a fat guy can get to 100 still working.

I’m constantly trying to invent different ways to do things. If you’re going to be a television executive, you have to change with the times.

I go to mass every Sunday, which is a shock to everybody.