Television Personalities

"“Tearing out the old, icky stuff is hard, it’s messy—ouch!” He dropped the hammer from his right hand and shook his left. “Ouch!” He danced around for a minute before regaining his composure, picking up the hammer and nail again, then looked at her straight-faced. “And at times it’s downright painful. But you’ve got to be willing to go through the process if you really want to see a true change. Anything less is just a cover-up.”"

"“‘Don’t forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.’ It’s from the Bible. Maybe your friend’s an angel too. I hope you were nice to him.”"

"“That’s why God sends His angels to me and you, maybe. So we won’t be sad anymore.”"

"“Perhaps Keith is exactly the way God intended him to be.”"

"“I’m sure that if he really does see angels, they are sent to him for a specific purpose that is beyond our understanding. And if someone else—say, you, for example—were to see or hear angels, it might be for an altogether different purpose.”"

"“…to know Keith is to love him. A lot of people seem to be especially disturbed by him, although I’ve never understood why. Does he make you uncomfortable?” There was no hint of judgment in her question, just curiosity."

"“The lamp’s not shining.” He pointed at the glow on the wall. “That’s the angel. He’s blinking the lamp.”"

"Keith seems to be able to see and hear angels from time to time."

"If only everyone could see, they would realize that the one they thought weak, was actually the strongest one among them."

"I hardly think an angel would walk around like a homeless person in the middle of New York."

"“I’ve seen things like this before,” the woman medic said. “Awed whispers, peaceful expressions when there shouldn’t be one, and almost always a song. Once I even thought I heard the tune. Makes you wonder what’s out there.”"

"I busted my ass for Obama. I mean, I took my radio show on the road. I did town halls. Talked to the people. I turned the microphone over to the working folk of America. I asked them what they thought about healthcare, what they thought about the economy, what we thought about staying in wars forever. I went after it. And President Obama, he don't come to Ed. He goes to Bret Baier on Fox News in my time slot. Now, my show's gonna be okay. But if you were in my position, would you say, "What's that all about?" Loyalty."

"Ed Schultz, the Reverend Al Sharpton, Rachel Maddow, and Chris Hayes provided us with the very fair coverage we received on MSNBC."

"Unbelievably, while trade agreements have an enormous impact on the lives of millions of Americans, they are virtually never discussed on television and rarely discussed in newspapers. According to Media Matters, a nonpartisan media watchdog, as the debate on the disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership was heating up, not one of the major networks chose to mention this trade agreement on its evening broadcast news programs from August 1, 2013, through May 10, 2015. This includes ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News. And with the exception of Ed Schultz of MSNBC, who has since been taken off the air, the cable news networks barely mentioned the TPP-a trade agreement that encompasses 40 percent of the global economy. But the workers impacted by trade deals certainly know all about them."

"A man cannot be comfortable [or cannot be made comfortable] without his own approval."

"The sports page records people's accomplishments, the front page usually records nothing, but man's failures."

"We thought that he was going to be -- I shouldn't say this at Christmastime -- but the next messiah."

"I can have respect and admiration for famous people, but I have never had a sense of fear or awe."

"The world may be full of fourth-rate writers but it's also full of fourth-rate readers."

"A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence and refinement so they think they will impress others with their command of obscure words."

"Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties."

"I find very often people like to confront rumors. It depends on how much they trust you. And you have to have a line between what is tasteful and what isn't."

"What kind of tree are you, if you think you're a tree now?"

"She made me laugh. I will miss her. Baba Wawa."

"Now here I was, half Jane Wyman, half Shirley Temple, and people began to stop me in the street and say, 'Don't worry, Barbara, it's all right, you won't lose your job.' It was really very touching."

"It's our duty to honor the dead by bringing democracy to this country."

"We cannot resist against these savages anymore. Please listen to me! Brothers and sisters, I will use the word beg. I beg you. We have to end this for now."

"No one is going to run against Trump on the Republican side and win because you are not going to get the Trump supporters. They are all in on Trump. Unless he has a stroke. Unless something horrible happens,People liked the ideas he was putting forward... everybody thinks there needs to be a wall. Even the Mayor of New York City is now calling to stop immigration into his city. This is a guy who called for it to be a sanctuary city."

"I would like to know what is it like when you actually get into office? I would like to know things like what is it like versus perception? What is it actually like when you get in that building? What are you greeted with? When do you know that people are fucking with you."

"But they just don’t want him president again, And they know that if he runs against Biden, Biden is so old, you know? And no matter what you think about his policies, you hear him talk. He’s so old. He’s so compromised."

"You know, what is the machine that runs this country? Because it's very clear that it's not as simple as elected representatives that are doing the will of the people."

"What’s weird is that when you say pride, people immediately think of gay.How insidious they snuck it in, They slowly took over pride like they took over the rainbow."

"They don't feel like they fit in anyway. When they give them testosterone a lot of times there is alleviation of anxiety that comes with testosterone and euphoria that comes with that and they say ok this is who I've meant to be which is so crazy that introducing a foreign substance into your body or at least a substance that your body does not naturally have at masculine doses, and that you are introducing that to a feminine body and then saying this is who I naturally am . That doesn't make sense biologically , scientifically."

"The targeting of migrant workers — not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers. Just construction workers. Showing up in construction sites, raiding them. Gardeners. Like, really? I don’t think anybody would have signed up for that."

"Canada’s fucking falling apart. All the shit they did during COVID was just the total wrong direction. The trucker convoy, when they froze people’s bank assets … they froze people’s bank accounts that donated money to the convoy. That’s crazy … a peaceful protest, which everybody is supposed to be all about, these people were protesting COVID vaccine mandates and the lockdowns and they fucking went after the people that donated, which is crazy … They shut their bank accounts down."

"Brian Cox: I'm damn sure that there's nothing going on in my head other than what is allowed by the laws of nature as we understand them.Joe Rogan: So, eliminating "woo", you mean. The idea of the soul being some sort of a divine thing that's inside the housing of the body.Brian Cox: Yeah. I would say we can rule that out, actually.Joe Rogan: Rule it out? How do you rule it out?Brian Cox: I have argued that we can rule it out in the following manner: here is my arm, right. It is made of electrons and protons and neutrons. And if I have a soul in there—something that we don't understand, but it's a different kind of energy or whatever it is we don't have in physics at the moment—it interacts with matter, because I am moving my hand around. So whatever it is, it is something that interacts very strongly with matter. But if you look at the history of particle physics in particular, which is the study of matter, we spent decades making high-precision measurements of how matter behaves and interacts. And we have looked, for example, for a fifth force of nature. So we know four forces: gravity, the two nuclear forces—called the weak and strong forces—and electromagnetism. And that is what we know exists. And we have looked for another one, with ultra-high precision, and we don't see any evidence for it. So I would claim that we know how matter interacts at these energies. It is room temperature now. At these energies, we know how matter interacts, very precisely. And so, if you want to suggest that there is something else that interacts with matter strongly, then I would say that it is ruled out. I would go as far as say that it is ruled out by experiment."

"Joe Rogan: What do you think consciousness is? Do you think consciousness is clearly a factor of brain tissue and energy, or do you think it's possible that what our brain is is something that "tunes into" consciousness?Brian Greene: Well, I've spent some time thinking about this question, and I think it is perhaps the deepest question that faces science, or even humanity at some level. My own personal perspective is that consciousness is nothing more than the choreographed motion of particles in various quantum states inside a gloppy, gray structure that sits inside this thing that we call a "head". Do I have any proof for that? No. Does anybody have any proof of what consciousness is? Not at all at this moment. But the history of the reductionist program, where we have been able to take some of the more spectacular creations that have emerged in the world and recognize that they are nothing but the product of their ingredients and the laws of physics, leads me to extrapolate that idea to the experience of consciousness. Now, having said that, there's a deep puzzle. It's called the hard problem of consciousness, which is: if electrons and quarks and particles and laws of physics are all that there is—and if you buy into the fact that electrons don't have an inner world, that quarks don't have an inner world—how can it be that by taking a collection of those particles, you can "turn on the lights"? How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless particles somehow yield mindful experience? And that's a deep question that science has not yet answered. My own feeling is, when we understand the brain better, that question will evaporate. We'll look at the brain with our newfound understanding—maybe it's a hundred years in the making, maybe a thousand years in the making—and we'll say: "Aha! When electrons and quarks and protons move in this particular configuration, one of the byproducts is an inner sensation that we call conscious experience." And that, to me, is the likely answer that we will find. But there are some very smart, well-respected people who go in a very different direction. There are some who say: electrons and protons and quarks, they do have a fundamental proto-conscious quality. They themselves are conscious beings of a sort. Now, it is not like you are going to have electrons that are crying, or quarks that are anguishing, but if you have a little proto-element of conscious experience that is imbued into a particle, and then you take a lot of the particles and then you put them together, the idea is, that yields the manifest conscious experience that we're familiar with. I don't buy into that.Joe Rogan: Why do you pick a position?Brian Greene: Well, I take a position on this because I guess my view is, you look out at the world, and what you do as a physicist is, you move the smallest degree required to explain the phenomena that you are observing. And to move from our current understanding of the world, to leapfrog to a place where electrons are conscious and quarks are conscious, to me is such a fantastically radical move that I don't consider it justified to make that move with our current level of understanding. There was a time, back in the 1800s, when life itself was so mystical that people basically said the same kind of thing: how could a collection of lifeless particles ever come together and yield a living being? They said that they can't. You have to induce a life force, you have to inject a life force, and that's what sparks the emergence of life from lifeless particles. I don't think any serious scientist thinks that today. I think most serious scientists say: "Yes, life is wonderful, life is in some sense miraculous, but life is nothing but the particles of nature coming together to yield the complex molecules of DNA and RNA, the complex cellular structures, the cells come together to yield the more complex multi-cellular organisms, and that is all that it takes to have something that is alive." No life force is necessary. That way of thinking about the world has gone away. And my own feeling is that that kind of progression is going to happen to consciousness. Today it's utterly mysterious how it is that I have this inner voice talking inside my head, how it is that I look around the world and I can see the color red, and I can experience the color red. I don't just have sensors that can call that "red". I mean, an iPhone can do that. I actually have an inner world where I feel that color red. Where does that come from? Hard to answer, that question, but I think, a hundred or a thousand years from now, we'll look back and smile at how we in this era invested consciousness with such a mystical quality, when in the end, it's nothing but particles and the laws of physics, and that's all there is to it."

"Hamilton Morris: I had a very traumatic and formative experience myself. My best friend had a psychotic break while I was with him tripping, so I have seen this firsthand. I know exactly what it looks like.Joe Rogan: Yeah, I've had friends have really bad experiences too with screaming and yelling and disassociation, and afterwards, become very strange and have a really hard time with reality for a bit. I've never seen someone have a complete psychotic break.Hamilton Morris: This was that. He never recovered.Joe Rogan: Never?Hamilton Morris: He never recovered. He was my best friend at the time, and he never recovered.Joe Rogan: So he was fine before the psychedelics?Hamilton Morris: Yes.Joe Rogan: Jesus Christ. So now, he's still fucked?Hamilton Morris: Yes.Joe Rogan: Damn."

"Do you know what I made the mistake of doing yesterday? I watched Ace Ventura: Pet Detective with my 8-year-old and my 10-year-old," Rogan said, as their conversation veered towards controversial films. … "I didn't realise how transphobic that fucking movie is."

"People are scared, man. They're scared of the void."

"When did society forget that kids 'should not make life-changing choices' like gender surgery?"

"Richard Dawkins: I think that eternity is what is frightening about death. And eternity is best spent under a general anesthetic—which is what is going to happen.Joe Rogan: Right. Gonezo. Out go the lights. Maybe, or maybe not. Have you had any experiences with psychedelics?Richard Dawkins: No.Joe Rogan: Do you have any interest in that? […] I would think that a person like yourself, who has this sort of rigorous belief that the lights go out, and then that's it … I would think that that would be attractive to just at least dip your toes in.Richard Dawkins: Yes, yes. Well, don't you think the lights go out?Joe Rogan: I don't know. I have had some pretty profound psychedelic experiences that make me wonder what thoughts are and what consciousness is.Richard Dawkins: Well, I wonder what consciousness is, but it's pretty clear that it's to do with brains, and brains decay. So I wouldn't hold out much hope if I were you.Joe Rogan: Well, you might be right. Certainly, consciousness does have to do with brains. We know brain damage severely perturbs consciousness. But there's some interaction with certain chemicals that makes this experience far different than what it is when we're on "the natch".Richard Dawkins: I believe that, but it's still brains, though.Joe Rogan: Still brains … but that's it? Reductionist?Richard Dawkins: Nothing wrong with reductionism.Joe Rogan: Nothing wrong with it. Not saying there is."

"Nature is everything, okay? We don't like to think that our society is nature, because we created it. But guess what? This is no different than a fucking beehive; it's just more complicated, 'cause people are smarter than bees. Cities are natural, that's why they're everywhere. … You know what's not natural? You … in the middle of the mountains … in the middle of the winter."

"[On Dr. Phil] Ladies, please listen to me, don't you ever take relationship advice from a guy you don't wanna fuck, okay? Because let me tell you something: if you don't wanna fuck him, chances are a lot of other girls don't wanna fuck him either; and that guy is gonna say whatever he needs to to make you happy. … He says crazy shit. He told this one man that masturbating is just as bad as cheating on his wife. I fucking shit you not! If I had a gun in my hand I woulda Elvis'd that TV."

"No girl wants a secretly gay boyfriend, every dude wants a secretly gay girlfriend."

"With the help of two concepts that are traditionally opposed—science and spirituality—we humbly reintroduce psychedelics back into the cultural dialogue."

"I was raised Catholic. That's why I don't take religion too seriously."

"I personally think confession was just someone's idea of a sick joke. One dude came up with it, then he died, and he forgot to tell everyone he was only fuckin' around. Think about the idea of confession … you take a guy who's not allowed to masturbate, or have sex, ever, then you make him wear a costume, then he has to sit in a dark booth, and listen to fuck stories whispered through a hole in the wall!"

"I ask that you suspend any opinions, either negative or positive, about these compounds. Whatever you believe their value to be, they continue to have profound effects wherever we find their use, whether it's contemporary Western culture or in the Amazon rainforest."

"Guys don't know they're pussy whipped until it's too late. Until you do something that lets you know, like when you shush your friends: "Hey, man, remember that time we went to Vegas and…?" "Dude, shut the fuck up about Vegas! The fuck are you doing?! The window's open, man! She's somewhere in the city!""