Our people page on Andy Rooney

More from and about
Andy Rooney
(biographical info at bottom of page)

Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the
happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.

I've learned that no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with. Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.

One question in my mind, which I hardly dare mention in public, is whether patriotism has, overall, been a force for good or evil in the world. Patriotism is rampant in war and there are some good things about it. Just as self-respect and pride bring out the best in an individual, pride in family, pride in teammates, pride in hometown bring out the best in groups of people. War brings out the kind of pride in country that encourages its citizens in the direction of excellence and it encourages them to be ready to die for it. At no time do people work so well together to achieve the same goal as they do in wartime. Maybe that's enough to make patriotism eligible to be considered a virtue. If only I could get out of my mind the most patriotic people who ever lived, the Nazi Germans. One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly.

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created
in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly.

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I've learned that when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

If you smile when you are alone, then you really mean it.

I'd be more willing to accept religion, even if I didn't believe it,
if I thought it made people nicer to each other but I don't think it does.

Writer, correspondent, producer. Born January 14, 1919, in Albany, New York, as Andrew Aitken Rooney, the son of Walter Scott Rooney and Ellinor Reynolds Rooney. Rooney attended the Albany Academy, an independent college-preparatory day school, and later Colgate University in upstate New York. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941, and began writing for the Stars and Stripes in London a year later. In 1943, he was one of seven correspondents who flew on the second American bombing raid over Germany, and later was one of the first American journalists to visit and write about the German concentration camps. Later, Rooney would comment on how the war had a profound effect on shaping his experience as a writer and reporter.

In 1978, Rooney would become a Sunday night TV staple when he put together a segment for the conclusion of 60 Minutes, entitled "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney." In Rooney's short commentary, the writer sat behind a walnut desk, which he built himself, and offered a satirical (some might say "grumpy"; others would say "blunt") view of trivial, everyday themes ranging from umbrellas and current events to shoelaces and salad dressing. The short clips aired each week as a summer replacement for the debate segment "Point/Counterpoint" featuring Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick, but the segment became a hit with viewers, and replaced "Point/Counterpoint" the end of the 1978–1979 season. Rooney's unique essays also won him Emmy Awards in 1979, 1981 and 1982. With his beetled brow, sour humor and curmudgeonly outlook on life, Rooney's 60 Minutes essays became a Sunday-night ritual for many Americans.

Rooney retired from his weekly commentary work on 60 Minutes in October 2011. He announced his plans to produce only occasional pieces for the show after he completed his 1,097th essay for the news program. A month later, on November 4, 2011, after suffering health complications from a minor surgery at a New York hospital, Rooney died. He was 92 years old.

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