Top 35 Mike Rowe Quotes

To me, we’re living in a non-linear world… But the truth is we are linear creatures. Everything unfolds one after the next. And that’s the thing we’ve become disconnected from.

Boredom is a choice. Like tardiness. Or interrupting.

I come from a blue collar family, but my personal life isn’t. I didn’t get the gene that my grandfather had in spades. He was a local hero. Built the church that I went to. Built the house I grew up in. Steamfitter, pipefitter, electrician, mechanic and plumber. I wanted to do those things. But it just didn’t come easy.

‘Dirty Jobs’ is a fun, simple little show with huge themes under it. For me, it’s penance, it’s redemption, it’s a sweaty mess.

I can say the willingness to get dirty has always defined us as an nation, and it’s a hallmark of hard work and a hallmark of fun, and dirt is not the enemy.

What you do, who you’re with, and how you feel about the world around you is completely up to you.

The skills gap is a reflection of what we value.

‘Bloody do-gooders’ is my expression for people who are nicer than me, who are better than me.

My mother’s dad dropped out of the eighth grade to work. He had to. By the time he was 30, he was a master electrician, plumber, carpenter, mason, mechanic. That guy was, to me, a magician. Anything that was broken, he could fix. Anybody anywhere in our community knew that if there was a problem, Carl was there to fix it.

People like to cherry-pick the parts of their career that they’re either in the midst of or that they’re the most proud of, but the truth is careers and lives are tapestries.

I’m fascinated by the skills gap.

For me, what’s the old expression, ‘Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,’ that’s really what religion is good at when it is done right. And the truth is, so is television.

I always complain because I’m old now and everything hurts.

There is a lot of stuff we can’t control, but it is completely in our power to decide what the definition of what a good job is. That’s up to us.

We need to promote an ethic of work. And there’s no way one guy or one company is going to be able to do it. It has to be a big hot mess – public, private, government, NGOs and smart alecks on the TV talking about it.

There’s a belief… in the country that we can cure unemployment by creating opportunity. The skills gap proves that opportunity along is not enough to get people employed.

You’ve got a lot of very, very smart people standing by waiting for somebody else to do the work. Not a recipe for long-term solvency in my opinion.

Happiness does not come from a job. It comes from knowing what you truly value and behaving in a way that’s consistent with those beliefs.

In a very general way, our society has fallen out of love with the skilled trades. Part of the problem is a myriad of myths and misperceptions that surround the jobs themselves, but the biggest cause is our stubborn belief that a four-year degree is the best path for the most people.

If you’re trying to raise a son, it gives you a chance to say things like, ‘Chop your own wood; it will warm you twice.’

At the risk of being glib, I would say if you really want to make America great again, you have to make work cool again.

I’ve got one of those over-stuffed leather chairs from the Pottery Barn. It faces north. I live in San Francisco, so there’s the Golden Gate Bridge off to the left, and there’s Alcatraz off to the right, and I’ve got a pile of pulp fiction next to me, and there’s usually a decent bottle of red wine next to the fireplace.

Meaningful work is very different than drudgery.

I’m from Baltimore.

Dirt used to be a badge of honor. Dirt used to look like work. But we’ve scrubbed the dirt off the face of work, and consequently we’ve created this suspicion of anything that’s too dirty.

Work ethic is important because, unlike intelligence, athleticism, charisma, or any other natural attribute, it’s a choice.

‘Dirty Jobs’ is maybe the simplest show in the history of TV, with the possible exception of ‘The Gong Show’. I go around the country; we’ve shot in every state. And we spend a day with people who do jobs that are dirty or dangerous or ridiculous or difficult.

The thing that makes ‘Dirty Jobs’ different is that it’s one of the few shows that portrays work in a way that doesn’t highlight the drudgery. Instead, it highlights the humor.

I’m looking forward to the future, and feeling grateful for the past.

I wouldn’t wish any specific thing for any specific person – it’s none of my business. But the idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane. It’s insane.

We don’t need American Idols. We need American icons. Icons of work.

Always flat front. You’ve got to be deeply suspicious of a man who consciously goes with pleats. Why would you do that?

The one thing that TV is bad at doing is preaching. There are two extremes, you either turn the people into a punchline or turn them into hero, and both of those things suck, because most people are neither in real life.

We’ve waged war on work. We have collectively agreed, stupidly, that work is the enemy.

Stop looking for the ‘right’ career, and start looking for a job. Any job. Forget about what you like. Focus on what’s available. Get yourself hired. Show up early. Stay late. Volunteer for the scut work. Become indispensable. You can always quit later, and be no worse off than you are today.