Film directors from the United States

"Marriage? That's for life! It's like cement!"

"I took a course in speed reading, learning to read straight down the middle of the page, and I was able to go through War and Peace in 20 minutes. It's about Russia."

"I think crime pays. The hours are good, you meet a lot of interesting people, you travel a lot."

"Allen: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it? Woman: Yes, it is. Allen: What does it say to you? Woman: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless, bleak straitjacket in a black, absurd cosmos. Allen: What are you doing Saturday night? Woman: Committing suicide. Allen: What about Friday night?"

"On bisexuality: It immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night."

"Love is the answer. But while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions."

"There have been times when I've thought of suicide but with my luck it'd probably be a temporary solution."

"The difference between sex and death is, with death you can do it alone and nobody's going to make fun of you."

"To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."

"Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it."

"It figures you've got to hate yourself if you've got any integrity at all."

"Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer."

"I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts."

"What a world. It could be so wonderful if it wasn't for certain people."

"[The universe is] haphazard, morally neutral, and unimaginably violent."

"Change is death."

"Some guy hit my car fender the other day, and I said unto him, "Be fruitful and multiply." But not in those words."

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment."

"How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?"

"We're worth a lot of dough. Whatever you see is antiques. This thing here. This is from — I don't remember exactly. I think it's the Renaissance or the Magna Carta or something. But that's where it's from."

"I'm not saying I didn't enjoy myself, but I didn't."

"As a filmmaker, I'm not interested in 9/11 [...] it's too small, history overwhelms it. The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again."

"I have no apprehension whatsoever. I've been through this so many times. And I found that one way or the other, your life doesn't change at all. Which is sad, in a way. Because the people love your film... nothing great happens. And people hate your film... nothing terrible happens. Many years ago, I would... I would... a film of mine would open, and it would get great reviews, and I would go down and look at the movie theater. There'd be a line around the block. And when a film is reviled, you open a film and people say "Oh, it's the stupidest thing, it's the worst movie." You think: oh, nobody's going to ever speak to you again. But, it doesn't happen. Nobody cares. You know, they read it and they say "Oh, they hated your film." You care, at the time. But they don't. Nobody else cares. They're not interested. They've got their own lives, and their own problems, and their own shadows on their lungs, and their x-rays. And, you know, they've got their own stuff they're dealing with.... So, I'm just never nervous about it."

"I made the statement years ago which is often quoted that 80 percent of life is showing up. People used to always say to me that they wanted to write a play, they wanted to write a movie, they wanted to write a novel, and the couple of people that did it were 80 percent of the way to having something happen. All the other people struck out without ever getting that pack. They couldn't do it, that's why they don't accomplish a thing, they don't do the thing, so once you do it, if you actually write your film script, or write your novel, you are more than half way towards something good happening. So that I was say [sic] my biggest life lesson that has worked. All others have failed me."

"To me there's no real difference between a fortune teller or a fortune cookie and any of the organized religions. They're all equally valid or invalid, really. And equally helpful."

"This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn't gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself."

"My relationship with death remains the same - I'm strongly against it, All I can do is wait for it,"

"You start to think, when you're younger, how important everything is and how things have to go right—your job, your career, your life, your choices, and all of that. Then, after a while, you start to realise that – I'm talking the big picture here – eventually you die, and eventually the sun burns out and the earth is gone, and eventually all the stars and all the planets in the entire universe go, disappear, and nothing is left at all. Nothing – Shakespeare and Beethoven and Michelangelo gone. And you think to yourself that there's a lot of noise and sound and fury – and where's it going? It's not going any place... Now, you can't actually live your life like that, because if you do you just sit there and – why do anything? Why get up in the morning and do anything? So I think it's the job of the artist to try and figure out why, given this terrible fact, you want to go on living."

"The film studios learned to our dismay but to their pleasure that if they spent $200 million making a film they could make half a billion on it. So they were not interested anymore in quality films... They can't afford to be that risky at those prices. Consequently you're getting a lot of remakes, sequels, dopey comedies full of toilet jokes..."

"Death is like a colonoscopy, the problem is that life is like the prep day."

"I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear."

"V. attacked his first woman at eighteen, and thereafter raped half a dozen per week for years. The best I was able to do with him in therapy was to substitute a more socially acceptable habit to replace his aggressive tendencies; and thereafter when he chanced upon an unsuspecting female, instead of assaulting her, he would produce a large halibut from his jacket and show it to her. While the sight of it caused consternation in some, the women were spared any violence and some even confessed their lives were immeasurably enriched by the experience."

"Last year, organized crime was directly responsible for more than one hundred murders, and mafiosi participated indirectly in several hundred more, either by lending the killers carfare or by holding their coats. Other illicit activities engaged in by Cosa Nostra members included gambling, narcotics, prostitution, hijacking, loansharking, and the transportation of a large whitefish across the state line for immoral purposes."

"Rabbi Zwi Chaim Yisroel, an Orthodox scholar of the Torah and a man who developed whining to an art unheard of in the West, was unanimously hailed as the wisest man of the Renaissance by his fellow-Hebrews, who totalled a sixteenth of one per cent of the population. Once, while he was on his way to synagogue to celebrate the sacred Jewish holiday commemorating God's reneging on every promise, a woman stopped him and asking the following question: "Rabbi, why are we not allowed to eat pork?" "We're not?" the Rev said incredulously. "Uh-oh.""

"Rabbi Raditz of Poland was a very short rabbi with a long beard, who was said to have inspired many pogroms with his sense of humor. One of his disciples asked, "Who did God like better, Moses or Abraham?" "Abraham," the Zaddik said. "But Moses led the Israelites to the Promised Land," said the disciple. "All right, so Moses," the Zaddik answered."

"I do not believe in God," I told him. "For if there is a God, then tell me, Uncle, why is there poverty and baldness? Why do some men go through life immune to a thousand mortal enemies of the race, while others get a migraine that lasts for weeks? Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?"

"Can we actually "know" the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown."

"It is impossible to experience one's own death objectively and still carry a tune."

"Eternal nothingness is O.K. if you're dressed for it."

"Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends."

"Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right."

"They called me mad... But it was I - yes I - who discovered the link between excessive masturbation and entry into politics!"

"When it comes to sex there are certain things that should always be left unknown, and with my luck, they probably will be."

"My brain: it's my second favorite organ."

"Oh, he was probably a member of the National Rifle Association. It was a group that helped criminals get guns so they could shoot citizens. It was a public service."

"I'm not really the heroic type. I was beat up by Quakers."

"Sex and death. Two things that come but once in my lifetime, but at least after death you're not nauseous."

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But, then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love, to be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy, therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness — I hope you're getting this down."

"Human beings are divided into mind and body. The mind embraces all the nobler aspirations, like poetry and philosophy, but the body has all the fun."

"The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. I think that the worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever."

"Sex without love is an empty experience. But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best."

"If I don't kill him he'll make war all through Europe. But murder... the most foul of all crimes. What would Socrates say? All those Greeks were homosexuals. Boy, they must have had some wild parties. I bet they all took a house together in Crete for the summer. A: Socrates is a man. B: All men are mortal. C: All men are Socrates. That means all men are homosexuals. Heh... I'm not a homosexual. Once, some cossacks whistled at me. I happen to have the kind of body that excites both persuasions. You know, some men are heterosexual and some men are bisexual and some men don't think about sex at all, you know... they become lawyers."

"I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If He was a carpenter, I wondered what He charged for bookshelves."

"In addition to our summer and winter estate, he owned a valuable piece of land. True, it was a small piece, but he carried it with him wherever he went."

"And so I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Actually, make that "I run through the valley of the shadow of death" - in order to get OUT of the valley of the shadow of death more quickly, you see."

"We have to take our possessions and flee. I'm very good at that. I was the men's freestyle fleeing champion two years in a row."

"As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree"— probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on."

"Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons."

"The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife — a depressing thought, particularly for those who have bothered to shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know where it's being held. On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down."

"Once a lumberjack was about to chop down a tree, when he noticed a heart carved on it, with two names inside. Putting away his axe, he sawed down the tree instead. The point of that story escapes me, although six months later the lumberjack was fined for teaching a dwarf Roman numerals."

"He had been mistaken several times for Robert Redford, but on each occasion it was by a blind person."

"What a wonderful thing, to be conscious! I wonder what the people in New Jersey do."

"He was on his way to see Harriet about the alimony payments. He still loved Harriet, even though while they were married she had systematically attempted to commit adultery with all the R's in the Manhattan telephone directory."

"Thought: Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage."

"What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet."

"If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank."

"Today I saw a red-and-yellow sunset and thought, "How insignificant I am!" Of course, I thought that yesterday, too, and it rained. I was overcome with self-loathing and contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman."

"And so he took Isaac to a certain place and prepared to sacrifice him but at the last minute the Lord stayed Abraham's hand and said, "How could thou doest such a thing?" And Abraham said, "But thou said-" "Never mind what I said," the Lord spake. "Doth thou listen to every crazy idea that comes thy way?" And Abraham grew ashamed. "Er-not really... no." "I jokingly suggest thou sacrifice Isaac and thou immediately runs out to do it." And Abraham fell to his knees, "See, I never know when you're kidding." And the Lord thundered, "No sense of humor. I can't believe it.""

"The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep."

"Lovborg's work can be divided into three periods. First came the series of plays dealing with anguish, despair, dread, fear, and loneliness (the comedies); the second group focused on social change (Lovborg was instrumental in bringing about safer methods of weighing herring); finally, there were the six great tragedies written just before his death, in Stockholm, in 1902, when his nose fell off, owing to tension."

"For fifty bucks, I learned, you could "relate without getting close." For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartók records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack. For one-fifty, you could listen to FM radio with twins. For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master's, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine's over Freud's conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing - the perfect evening, for some guys."

"A fine example of a demonstration was the Boston Tea Party, where outraged Americans disguised as Indians dumped British tea into the harbor. Later, Indians disguised as outraged Americans dumped actual British into the harbor. Following that, the British disguised as tea, dumped each other into the harbor. Finally, German mercenaries clad only in costumes from The Trojan Women leapt into the harbor for no apparent reason."

"Viscous and Sons had announced publication of The Annotated Poems of Sean O'Shawn, the great Irish poet, considered by many to be the most incomprehensible and hence the finest poet of his time. Abounding in highly personal references, an understanding of O'Shawn's work requires an intimate knowledge of his life, which, according to scholars, not even he had."

"It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

"What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?"

"I don't recognize this committee's right to ask me these kind of questions! And furthermore, you can all go fuck yourselves."

"I heard that Commentary and Dissent had merged and formed Dysentery."

"I can't get with any religion that advertises in Popular Mechanics."

"I had dated a woman briefly in the Eisenhower administration, and it was ironic to me, because I was trying to do to her what Eisenhower had been doing to the country for the last 8 years."

"No wonder some people commit suicide! Why not end this absurdity? Why go through with this hollow charade called life? Why, except that somewhere within us a voice says, "Live." Always, from some inner region, we hear the command,"Keep living!" Cloquet recognized the voice; it was his insurance salesman. Naturally, he thought - Fishbein doesn't want to pay off."

"It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off."

"Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought — particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things."

"A typical "explained" incident is the one reported by Sir Chester Ramsbottom, on June 5, 1961, in Shropshire: "I was driving along the road at 2 A.M. and saw a cigar-shaped object that seemed to be tracking my car. No matter which way I drove, it stayed with me, turning sharply at right angles. It was a fierce, glowing red, and in spite of twisting and turning the car at high speed I could not lose it. I became alarmed and began sweating. I let out a shriek of terror and apparently fainted, but awoke in a hospital, miraculously unharmed." Upon investigation, experts determined that the "cigar-shaped object" was Sir Chester's nose. Naturally, all his evasive actions could not lose it, since it was attached to his face."

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

"My second wife was beautiful, but lacked real passion. I recall once, while we were making love, a curious optical illusion occurred and for a split second it almost looked as though she was moving."

"Is anything in nature actually "perfect" with the exception of my Uncle Hyman's stupidity? Who am I to demand perfection? I, with my myriad faults. I made a list of my faults, but could not get past: 1) Sometimes forgets his hat."

"I sit in a London pub with Willie Maugham. I am distressed, because my first novel, Proud Emetic, has been coolly received by the critics. Its one favorable notice, in the Times, was vitiated by the last sentence, which called the book "a miasma of asinine cliches unrivalled in Western letters." Maugham explains that while this quote can be interpreted many ways, it might be best not to use it in the print ads."

"Of all the famous men who ever lived, the one I would most like to have been was Socrates. Not just because he was a great thinker, because I have been known to have some reasonably profound insights myself, although mine invariably revolve around a Swedish airline stewardess and some handcuffs."

"Death is a state of non-being. That which is not, does not exist. Therefore death does not exist. Only truth exists. Truth and beauty. Each is interchangeable, but are aspects of themselves. Er, what specifically did they say they had in mind for me?"

"Hey listen — I've proved a lot of things. That's how I pay my rent. Theories and little observations. A puckish remark now and then. Occasional maxims. It beats picking olives, but let's not get carried away."

"Agathon: But all that talk about death being the same as sleep. Socrates: Yes, the difference is that when you're dead and somebody yells, "Everybody up, it's morning," it's very hard to find your slippers."

"Taste my tuna casserole — tell me if I put in too much hot fudge."

"What has gotten into you lately? Save a little craziness for menopause!"

"I bought her this handkerchief... and I didn't even know her size."

"I can't listen to that much Wagner, ya know? I start to get the urge to conquer Poland."

"[about his daughter] I'd rather she grew up here than grew up as an orphan, you know I can tolerate anybody's orphans but my own."

"...years of insanity have made this guy crazy!"

"Harry: Between the Pope and air conditioning, I'd choose air conditioning."

"Harry: You think the President of the United States wants to fuck every woman he meets?... Well, bad example."

"Harry: The most beautiful words in the English language aren't "I love you" but "it's benign.""

"Harry: Every hooker I ever speak to tells me that it beats the hell out of waitressing. Waitressing's gotta be the worst fucking job in the world."

"Cookie: What are you sad about? Harry: I'm spiritually bankrupt. I'm empty. Cookie: What do you mean? Harry: I'm frightened. I got no soul, you know what I mean? Let me put it this way: when I was younger it was less scary waiting for Lefty than it is waiting for Godot. Cookie: You lost me! Harry: You know that the universe is coming apart? You know about that? You know what a black hole is? Cookie: Yeah. That's how I make my living."

"Burt: Do you care even about the Holocaust or do you think it never happened? Harry: Not only do I know that we lost six million, but the scary thing is that records are made to be broken."

"Harry: No, I don't think you're paranoid. I think you're the opposite of paranoid. I think you walk around with the insane delusion that people like you."

"Harry: Tradition is the illusion of permanence."

"Harry: (On being called a self-hating Jew) Hey, I may hate myself, but not because I'm Jewish."

"Doris: You have no values. With you it's all nihilism, cynicism, sarcasm, and orgasm. Harry: Hey, in France I could run for office with that slogan, and win!"

"The Devil: You want me to turn the air-conditioning on? Harry: You have air-conditioning in Hell? The Devil: Sure, it fucks up the ozone layer!"

"Harry: All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it."

"A lot of things have happened in my private life recently that I thought we could review tonight."

"I feel sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it's fantastic."

"A fast word about oral contraception. I was involved in an extremely good example of oral contraception two weeks ago. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, she said "no.""

"Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats."

"I was in analysis. I was suicidal. As a matter of fact, I would have killed myself, but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian and if you kill yourself they make you pay for the sessions you miss."

"I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me."

"I tended to place my wife under a pedestal."

"I'm not a drinker — my body will not tolerate spirits. I had two Martinis on New Year's Eve and I tried to hijack an elevator and fly it to Cuba."

"When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room."

"It is a gorgeous gold pocket watch, however, I'm proud of it. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch."

"How could I not have known that there are little things the size of "Planck length" in the universe, which are a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter? Imagine if you dropped one in a dark theater how hard it would be to find."

"And how does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly, would certain restaurants still require a jacket?"

"With that, he scribbled in an additional ninety thousand dollars on the estimate, which had waxed to the girth of the Talmud while rivaling it in possible interpretations."

"I have also reviewed my own financial obligations, which have puffed up recently like a hammered thumb."

"She quarreled with the nanny and accused her of brushing Misha's teeth sideways rather than up and down."

"As we know, for centuries Rome regarded the Open Hot Turkey Sandwich as the height of licentiousness."

"I was supremely confident my flair for atmosphere and characterization would sparkle alongside the numbing mulch ground out by studio hacks. Certainly the space atop my mantel might be better festooned by a gold statuette than by the plastic dipping bird that now bobbed there ad infinitum."

"Bidnick gorges himself on Viagra, but the dosage makes him hallucinate and causes him to imagine he is Pliny the Elder."

"To a man standing on the shore, time passes quicker than to a man on a boat — especially if the man on the boat is with his wife."

"I have learned one thing. As Woody says, "Showing up is 80 percent of life." Sometimes it's easier to hide home in bed. I've done both. - 1977 August 21, New York Times, Section 2: Arts and Leisure, He's Woody Allen's Not-So-Silent Partner by Susan Braudy, Page 11 (ProQuest Page 83), New York."

"Woody Allen later wrote in a letter: "My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel, he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book. In the midst of the conversation, as I'm now trying to recall, I did say that 80 percent of success is showing up." - 1989 August 13, New York Times, On Language: The Elysian Fields by William Safire."

"I WANTED nothing more than to be a foreign filmmaker, but of course I was from Brooklyn, which was not a foreign country. Through a happy accident I wound up being a foreign filmmaker because I couldn't raise money any other way."

"You know, the whole American culture is going down the drain, you can't turn on a television set and see anything, or walk in the street and not find garbage, or neighborhoods that were formerly beautiful now have McDonald's in them, and it's all a part of an enormous degeneration of culture in the United States. People that exist in that culture are forced to make moral decisions all the time about their lives, their occupations, their love-lives, and they make decisions that are commensurate with what's happening to them in this culture, and it's too bad that that's happening because that's what Manhattan is about, that New York used to be such a great city, so wonderful, and it has to fight every day for its survival against the encroachment of all this terrible ugliness that is gradually overcoming all the big cities in America. This ugliness comes from a culture that has no spiritual center, a culture that has money and education, but no sense of being at peace with the world, no sense of purpose in life. They don't know what they're doing, or why they're here. They have no religious center, they have no philosophical center, and so they act, they do what's expedient at the moment. They have no long view of society. They only have the view of quick money, and kill the pain of the moment, and so instead of dealing with the real problems that exist, that are complicated, they sweep them under the rug by turning on the television set, or taking cocaine, or doing many things that enable them to escape confrontation with the unpleasant realities of the world."

"At the time that I worked with Woody Allen, I knew nothing of the allegations. At the time, I said it's a very painful and complicated situation for the family, which I hope they have the ability to resolve....If these allegations need to be re-examined which, in my understanding, they've been through court, then I'm a big believer in the justice system and setting legal precedents,....If the case needs to be reopened, I am absolutely, wholeheartedly in support of that."

"In this land of unlimited opportunity, a place where, to paraphrase Woody Allen, any man or woman can realize greatness as a patient or as a doctor, we have only one commercial American filmmaker who consistently speaks with his own voice. That is Woody Allen, gag writer, musician, humorist, philosopher, playwright, stand-up comic, film star, film writer and film director."

"With the possible exception of What's Up, Tiger Lily (1966), the schlocky Japanese spy movie to which he attached his own, sidesplitting English soundtrack, no Woody Allen movie has ever been more or less serious than another of his works. He's always been serious. It's the audiences who have been frivolous. In Zelig he reassures us that he can still be funny and moving without making the sort of insistent filmic references in which he delights but which can be infuriating to others. Zelig is a nearly perfect — and perfectly original — Woody Allen comedy."

"This is Woody Allen's 41st film. He writes his films himself, and directs them with wit and grace. I consider him a treasure of the cinema."

"Woody Allen is currently having non-incest with a non-daughter for whom he is a non-father because they have no concept of families...it's a weird environment out there."

"Without Feathers, a collection of Woody Allen’s early short stories, was a prized possession."

"I think the best thing for writers to do with the movies is to keep their trap shut. Woody Allen said, "Take the money and run," and he's right."

"I don't even think Woody does comedy. I think he does dramas with jokes. They're all sad at their core."

"If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he'd be dead by now."

"In Woody Allen, the Republicans quickly discovered the genuine article, a sexual heretic...Of course it is absurd to suggest that Americans do not approve of love. They do, with the same highly trained enthusiasm with which they approve of a sense of humour. Their desire to preserve this infantile attitude is what makes them so frightened of feeling sympathy for Woody Allen. They do not wish to acknowledge that true love might also be socially disruptive, so they insist that the socially disruptive is not true love. That is why it is so crucial that Woody Allen be thought not only immoral, but insincere."

"[unenthusiastically at the beginning of every show in response to audience applause] "Thanks.""

"I recently went to the hardware store and I bought some used paint... it was in a shape of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren't included, so I had to buy them again."

"I was once walking through the forest alone. A tree fell right in front of me, and I didn't hear a thing."

"I have a large seashell collection which I keep scattered on the beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen it."

"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."

"When I first read the dictionary, I thought it was a long poem about everything."

"I went to a museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums."

"Everywhere is walking distance if you've got the time."

"Sometimes you cannot hear me, it's because sometimes I'm in parentheses."

"I bought some powdered water, but I don't know what to add."

"A lot of people are afraid of heights; not me, I'm afraid of widths."

"I woke up one morning, [my girlfriend] asked me if I slept good. I said, "No, I made a few mistakes.""

"I saw six men kicking and punching the mother-in-law. My neighbour said 'Are you going to help?' I said 'No, Six should be enough.'"

"I wish the first word I ever said was the word "quote," so right before I die I could say "unquote.""

"Lots of my friends have babies, but I don't have any babies. But I have lots of friends; babies don't have any friends. They all have those baby-monitors so they can hear the baby from the other room, which I consider a form of wiretapping. One day there's gonna be a really smart baby who makes a fake recording of some fake baby noises... gonna crawl out of the window and go to Italy."

"I need one of those baby-monitors for my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I'm really thinking about."

"Sometimes I talk to myself fluently in languages I'm unfamiliar with... just to screw with my subconscious."

"It's a good thing a lot of people speak foreign languages, otherwise those people would have no one to talk to."

"They say you're not supposed to put metal in a microwave oven... They're right."

"I bought a new camera. It's very advanced. You don't even need it."

"I have a paper cut from writing my suicide note. [sighs] It's a start..."

"In school they told me "Practice makes perfect." And then they told me "Nobody's perfect," so then I stopped practicing."

"I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter."

"I tried to hang myself with bungie cords. I kept almost dying."

"About five years ago, somebody showed me some web sites that had my material all over them, and I thought that was fascinating. One reason was, I'd never seen my jokes written one right after another like that. I write on drawing paper—I don't even like lines on the paper—so I have notebooks all over the place with handwritten pieces of my act in them. So to see it go by, all typed out neatly, was like, "Wow." And then two or three years ago, someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn't write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn't write any of it. What's disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I'm embarrassed that people think I thought of them, because some are really bad."

"Steven had a great line. They were askin' us "What's it like as a comedian in front of 80,000 people?" And Steven said "If you're swimming in the ocean, it doesn't matter how deep the water is. All you can do is swim.""

"The pursuit of truth, properly considered, shouldn't stop short of insanity."

"The proper route to an understanding of the world is an examination of our errors about it."

"I am profoundly skeptical about our abilities to predict the future in general, and human behavior in particular."

"I like the idea of making films about ostensibly absolutely nothing. I like the irrelevant, the tangential, the sidebar excursion to nowhere that suddenly becomes revelatory. That's what all my movies are about. That and the idea that we're in possession of certainty, truth, infallible knowledge, when actually we're just a bunch of apes running around. My films are about people who think they're connected to something, although they're really not."

"I believe that we face incredible obstacles in our attempts to see the world. Everything in our nature tries to deny the world around us; to refabricate it in our own image; to reinvent it for our own benefit. And so, it becomes something of a challenge, a task, to recover (or at least attempt to recover) the real world despite all the impediments to that end."

"Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Really? Human nature being what it is, isn't it hopeless to expect that we can do better regardless of whether we remember anything or not? And what if what we remember leads us to false analogies and misunderstandings? I prefer: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it without a sense of ironic futility." Or how about this: "Those who cannot condemn the past repeat it in order to remember it.""

"I believe that historical analogies are always wrong. This a long discussion, but, to me, the most dangerous thing about Chamberlain's capitulation to Hitler at Munich is not the fact that Munich happened and it led to further Nazi aggression and so on and so forth, but that the example of Munich has been used to support thousands upon thousands of bad policies and inappropriate decisions. LeMay called JFK's recommendation for a “quarantine” (that is, a blockade) in the Cuban Missile Crisis “worse than Munich”. Would nuclear war have been a better alternative? But nuclear war was averted by Kennedy's policies. And thirty years later the Soviet Union collapsed without the need for nuclear war. Was LeMay right? I don't think so. But again, the example of Munich was invoked to justify the invasion of Iraq. Appeasing Saddam, appeasing Hitler. The use of the Munich analogy does not clarify, it obscures. History is like the weather. Themes do repeat themselves, but never in the same way. And analogies became rhetorical flourishes and sad ex post facto justifications rather than explanations. In the end, they explain nothing."

"I like to think of myself as the ultimate anti-postmodernist post-modernist. Notwithstanding the unusual narrative or visual devices that appear in many of the films, what have kept me going for the three years of investigating [for The Thin Blue Line, was the belief that there answers to questions such as, Adams did it, didn't he? Or Harris did it, didn't he? That it's not just up for grabs. Today, I believe there's a kind of frisson of ambiguity. People think that ambiguity is somehow wonderful in its own right, an excuse for failing to investigate. What can I say? I think this view is wrong. At best, misguided. Maybe even reprehensible."

"Listening to what people were saying wasn't even important. But it was important to look as if you were listening to what people were saying. Actually, listening to what people are saying, to me, interferes with looking as if you were listening to what people are saying."

"Correct me if I'm wrong here, but truth is something that arises out of the relationship between language and the world. If I look at a picture alone, it tells me nothing. In the previous incarnation of this lecture, I was going to put a picture of the Titanic and the Lusitania up on the screen. They look very, very similar - four smokestacks. They look almost identical. You look at either picture, true or false? Neither. Put a caption at the bottom of one of them, that changes everything. If you put in the caption, "This is the Lusitania," and the picture is a picture of the Lusitania, then the caption is true. However, the picture itself is neither true nor false. It's just a picture."

"You know, I have this version of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. God, in expelling Adam and Eve, kind of felt bad. He had gotten very angry, right? You know, you get angry and then you feel, "Well, maybe I overreacted." So, God was in that kind of mood when he expelled Adam and Eve from the garden. But his hands were tied. He had to go through with it; he had made the decision. God doesn't want to constantly second-guess himself. But he thought, "I know. I'll give them self-deception. Things are going to be truly horrendous out there, but they'll never notice.""

"I gave someone a perverse argument not so long ago about why advertising is better than movies. You want to hear it? Movies operate from a really disingenuous premise, that people are heroes. I know a lot of people and have had an opportunity over the years to observe them. Are they heroes...? Let's put it this way. Advertising tries something simpler and more believable: Products as heroes. I guess the idea is: When all else fails, put your faith in conditioner."

"There's the Mike Wallace approach, or you can call it the Michael Moore approach, which is the adversarial approach. In the end, that is not in the service of finding out anything. It's in service of dramatizing a received view: Namely, "This guy is an asshole, and now I will illustrate how this guy is an asshole by showing his inability to answer the questions I put to him." It's not what I'm about. It's not that one approach is good and the other is bad. They just have different valences. I like confrontation as much as the next guy. I'll give you the best example I can think of for why I like my method. [During] my interview with Emily Miller, one of the wacko eyewitnesses in The Thin Blue Line, she volunteered that she had failed to pick out Randall Adams in a police lineup. It wasn't me saying to her, "Emily Miller, how come you failed to pick out Randall Adams in a police lineup?" Why? Because I didn't know she failed to do it, because part of the trial record said she had successfully picked him out. When I heard this, not in response to some adversarial question, just her telling me her story, I asked her, "How did you know you failed to pick out Randall Adams?" She said, "I know because the policeman sitting next to me told me I had picked out the wrong person and pointed out the right person so I wouldn't make that mistake again.""

"You can think of my films as cautionary tales, but you might even think of them as despairing tales, because at least in a cautionary tale, you have this idea that by listening to the story you can assure a better outcome. Whereas I'm not at all convinced that's the case. In fact, if anything, I'm convinced that it's the opposite."

"I don't really understand how Errol got drawn to these gothic themes that interest him - maybe that he lost his father."

"All the movies are about strange worlds that you can't go into unless you build them and film them. That's what's so important about film to me. I just like going into strange worlds."

"The worst thing about this modern world is that people think you get killed on television with zero pain and zero blood. It must enter into kids' heads that it's not very messy to kill somebody, and it doesn't hurt that much. That's a real sickness to me. That's a real sick thing."

"I don't think about technique. The ideas dictate everything. You have to be true to that or you're dead."

"When you're an artist, you pick up on certain things that are in the air. You just feel it. It's not like you're sitting down, thinking, "What can I do to really mess things up?" You're getting ideas, and then the ideas feed into a story, and the story takes shape. And if you're honest about it and you're thinking about characters and what they do, you now see that your ideas are about trouble. You're feeling more depth, and you're describing something that is going on in some way."

"In film, life-and-death struggles make you sit up, lean forward a little bit. They amplify things happening, in smaller ways, in all of us. These things show up in relationships. They show up in struggles and bring them to a critical point."

"The beginning dictates the direction and you never know where you're going to go ... the mood is what you're looking for, and somehow we always find it."

"When I was little in Spokane, Washington I drew all the time... and my father would bring paper home ... and I mostly drew browning automatic water-cooled sub-machine guns... that was my favorite."

"Every single thing in the world that was made by anyone started with an idea. So to catch one that is powerful enough to fall in love with, it is one of the most beautiful experiences. It's like being jolted with electricity and knowledge at the same time."

"I found the world completely and totally fantastic as a child. Of course, I had the usual fears, like going to school ... For me, back then, school was a crime against young people. It destroyed the seeds of liberty. The teachers didn't encourage knowledge or a positive attitude."

"A film is its own thing and in an ideal world I think a film should be discovered knowing nothing and nothing should be added to it and nothing should be subtracted from it."

"I'm not a political person. ... I don't understand politics, I don't understand the concept of two sides and I think that probably there's good on both sides, bad on both sides, and there's a middle ground, but it never seems to come to the middle ground and it's very frustrating watching it and seemingly we're not moving forward. Some change, simple, simple really, relatively speaking, and we're going forwards somewhere, you know? It could be a beautiful place. There's many little obstacles and there's many, many people that are just opposed and we're not going forward."

"My cow is not pretty, but it's pretty to me."

"Life is very, very complicated and so films should be allowed to be too."

"There's this beautiful ocean of bliss and consciousness that is able to be reached by any human being by diving within, which is really peaceful and harmonious and can be enlivened by the group process. This group is a peace-creating group. It saturates the atmosphere. This is all about establishing peace. Right now, we gotta get peace back in the world. Peace is a real thing."

"Being in darkness and confusion is interesting to me. But behind it you can rise out of that and see things the way they really are. That there is some sort of truth to the whole thing, if you could just get to that point where you could see it, and live it, and feel it ... I think it is a long, long, way off. In the meantime there's suffering and darkness and confusion and absurdities, and it's people kind of going in circles. It's fantastic. It's like a strange carnival: it's a lot of fun, but it's a lot of pain."

"Speaking in front of a large crowd is not pleasant. Once it gets rolling, it's okay. But beforehand, it's murder. I'm getting a lot better. The first interview I ever did was in 1972, I believe, and I couldn't speak. I couldn't speak one word. I only said, "I painted it black." That was my one sentence. And so I have improved."

"It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It is better not to know so much about what things mean. Because the meaning, it's a very personal thing and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for someone else."

"The ocean of solutions is within, enliven that. ... It's a world of clues, a world of mystery but the mystery can get solved, you can find a lot of answers for these things within."

"There's so many problems in our world, so much negativity. Don't worry about the darkness — turn on the light and the darkness automatically goes. Ramp up the light of unity within — help do that for yourself, help do that for the world and then we're really doing something, we're doing something that brings that light of unity.""

"Bullshit, that's how I feel. Total fucking bullshit."

"It's such a sadness that you think you've seen a film on your fucking telephone. Get real."

"The sick reality about our over dependance on language is that trying to live without it is like a blind and deaf man with no arms or legs trying to navigate a dark narrow cave, and the cave is full of tarantulas."

"There is a plot. What would be the point of just a bunch of things? There's a story, but the story can hold abstractions. I believe in story. I believe in characters. But I believe in a story that holds abstractions, and a story that can be told based on ideas that come in an unconventional way.""

"Language is an evil thing, a very evil thing. And a force to be reckoned with."

"Don't make a film if it can't be the film you want to make. It's a joke, and a sick joke, and it'll kill you."

"I love child things because there's so much mystery when you're a child. When you're a child, something as simple as a tree doesn't make sense. You see it in the distance and it looks small, but as you go closer, it seems to grow — you haven't got a handle on the rules when you're a child. We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experienced is a narrowing of the imagination."

"I guess I got whacked hard in the mystery department when I was little. I found the world completely and totally fascinating then — it was like a dream. They say that people who think they had a happy childhood are blocking something out, but I think I really had one. Of course I had the usual fears, like going to school — I knew there was some sort of problem there. But every other person sensed that problem too, so my fears were pretty normal."

"There's always fear of the unknown where there's mystery. It's possible to achieve a state where you realize the truth of life and fear disappears, and a lot of people have reached that state, but next to none of them are on Earth. There's probably a few."

"Dark things have always existed but they used to be in a proper balance with good when life was slower. People lived in towns and small farms where they knew everybody and people didn't move around so much so things were a little more peaceful. There were things that they were afraid of for sure, but now it's accelerated to where the anxiety level of the people is in the stratosphere. TV sped things up and caused people to hear way more bad news. Mass media overloaded people with more than they could handle, and drugs also had a lot to do with it. With drugs people can get so rich and whacked out and they've opened up a whole weird world. These things have created a modern kind of fear in America."

"One change of attitude would change everything. If everyone realized that it could be a beautiful world and said let's not do these things anymore — let's have fun."

"There are so many clues and feelings in the world that it makes a mystery and a mystery means there's a puzzle to be solved. Once you think like that you're hooked on probably finding a meaning, and there' many avenues in life where we're given little indications that the mystery can one day be solved. we get little proofs, — not the big proof — but the little proofs that keep us searching."

"When you do something that works you have a happiness, but I don't know if it's a feeling of power. Power is a frightening thing and that's not what I'm interested in. I want to do certain things and make them right in my mind and that's it."

"Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they're very beautiful."

"When I first heard about meditation, I had zero interest in it. I wasn't even curious. It sounded like a waste of time. What got me interested, though, was the phrase "true happiness lies within." At first I thought it sounded kind of mean, because it doesn't tell you where the "within" is, or how to get there. But still it had a ring of truth. And I began to think that maybe meditation was a way to go within."

"When I started meditating, I was filled with anxieties and fears. I felt a sense of depression and anger. I often took out this anger on my first wife. After I had been meditating for about two weeks, she came to me and said, "What's going on?" I was quiet for a moment. But finally I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "This anger, where did it go?" And I hadn't even realized that it had lifted. I call that depression and anger the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity. It's suffocating, and that rubber stinks. But once you start meditating and diving within, the clown suit starts to dissolve. You finally realize how putrid was the stink when it starts to go. Then, when it dissolves, you have freedom. Anger and depression and sorrow are beautiful things in a story, but they are like poison to the filmmaker or artist. They are like a vise grip on creativity. If you're in that grip, you can hardly get out of bed, much less experience the flow of creativity and ideas. You must have clarity to create. You have to be able to catch ideas."

"I started out just as a regular person, growing up in the Northwest. My father was a research scientist for the Department of Agriculture, studying trees. So I was in the woods a lot. And the woods for a child are magical. I lived in what people call small towns. My world was what would be considered about a city block, maybe two blocks. Everything occurred in that space. All the dreaming, all my friends existed in that small world. But to me it seemed so huge and magical. There was plenty of time available to dream and be with friends. I liked to paint and I liked to draw. And I often thought, wrongly, that when you got to be an adult, you stopped painting and drawing and did something more serious."

"I'm not always good with words. Some people are poets and have a beautiful way of saying things with words. But cinema is its own language. And with it you can say so many things, because you've got time and sequences. You've got dialogue. You've got music. You've got sound effects. You have so many tools. And so you can express a feeling and a thought that can't be conveyed any other way. It's a magical medium. For me, it's so beautiful to think about these pictures and sounds flowing together in time and in sequence, making something that can be done only through cinema. It's not just words or music — it's a whole range of elements coming together and making something that didn't exist before. It's telling stories. It's devising a world, an experience, that people cannot have unless they see that film."

"I like the saying "The world is as you are." And I think films are as you are. That's why, although the frames of a film are always the same — the same number, in the same sequence, with the same sounds — every screening is different. The difference is sometimes subtle but it's there. It depends on the audience. There is a circle that goes from the audience to the film and back. Each person is looking and thinking and feeling and coming up with his or her own sense of things. And it's probably different from what I fell in love with. So you don’t know how it's going to hit people. But if you thought about how it's going to hit people, or if it's going to hurt someone, or if it's going to do this or do that, then you would have to stop making films. You just do these things that you fall in love with, and you never know what's going to happen."

"An idea is a thought. It's a thought that holds more than you think it does when you receive it. But in that first moment there is a spark. In a comic strip, if someone gets an idea, a lightbulb goes on. It happens in an instant, just as in life. It would be great if the entire film came all at once. But it comes, for me, in fragments. That first fragment is like the Rosetta stone. It's the piece of the puzzle that indicates the rest. It's a hopeful puzzle piece. In Blue Velvet, it was red lips, green lawns, and the song — Bobby Vinton's version of "Blue Velvet". The next thing was an ear lying in a field. And that was it. You fall in love with the first idea, that little tiny piece. And once you've got it, the rest will come in time."

"Eraserhead is my most spiritual movie. No one understands when I say that, but it is. Eraserhead was growing in a certain way, and I didn't know what it meant. I was looking for a key to unlock what these sequences were saying. Of course, I understood some of it; but I didn't know the thing that just pulled it all together. And it was a struggle. So I got out my Bible and I started reading. And one day, I read a sentence. And I closed the Bible, because that was it. And then I saw the thing as a whole. And it fulfilled this vision for me, 100 percent. I don't think I'll ever say what that sentence was."

"On Blue Velvet, I worked with a casting director, Johanna Ray. And we had all brought up Dennis Hopper. But everybody said, 'No, no; you can't work with Dennis. He's really in bad shape, and you'll have nothing but trouble.' So we continued looking for people. But one day, Dennis' agent called and said that Dennis was clean and sober and had already done another picture, and I could talk to that director to verify it. Then Dennis called and said, 'I have to play Frank, because I am Frank.' That thrilled me, and scared me."

"People have asked me why — if meditation is so great and gives you so much bliss — are my films so dark, and there's so much violence? There are many, many dark things flowing around in this world right now, and most films reflect the world in which we live. They're stories. Stories are always going to have conflict. They're going to have highs and lows, and good and bad. I fall in love with certain ideas. And I am where I am. Now, if I told you I was enlightened, and this is enlightened filmmaking, that would be another story. But I'm just a guy from Missoula, Montana, doing my thing, going down the road like everybody else. We all reflect the world we live in. Even if you make a period film, it will reflect your times. You can see the way period films differ, depending on when they were made. It's a sensibility — how they talk, certain themes — and those things change as the world changes. And so, even though I'm from Missoula, Montana, which is not the surrealistic capital of the world, you could be anywhere and see a kind of strangeness in how the world is these days, or have a certain way of looking at things."

"Stay true to yourself. Let your voice ring out, and don't let anybody fiddle with it. Never turn down a good idea, but never take a bad idea. And meditate. It's very important to experience that Self, that pure consciousness. It's really helped me. I think it would help any filmmaker. So start diving within, enlivening that bliss consciousness. Grow in happiness and intuition. Experience the joy of doing. And you'll glow in this peaceful way. Your friends will be very, very happy with you. Everyone will want to sit next to you. And people will give you money!"

"You feel David in his movies — its another universe he takes you to — its an alternate reality but its close enough to our own that its scary."

"It's great when somebody breaks rules and says, "You know what? There doesn't have to be an answer to this. You don't have to have a fourth wall, you don't have to have any boundaries.""

"Jimmy Stewart from Mars."

"It was curious, so much was in his mind, but he didn't talk about what he was doing, so it was difficult sometimes to follow. He's quite a macabre person. He said to me one day: "You should take the kids to the London Hospital and look at all the freaks in the bottles, the two-headed babies." The actual Elephant Man was in there. He said: "You'll really enjoy it. Take some sandwiches and make a day of it.""

"One day he was showing me a painting he made. It was thick with oil, and right as he showed it to me a moth flew into the painting and got stuck — it flew around and its wings created a little circle in his painting, sort of like the death of a moth ... I thought David would pull the moth out and repaint it, but he fell in love with it the way it was."

"Luckily, David is able to vent everything through his art ... because otherwise somebody might be dead."

"Most people have strange thoughts, but they rationalize them. David doesn't translate his images logically, so they remain raw, emotional. Whenever I ask him where his ideas come from, he says it's like fishing. He never knows what he's going to catch."

"I just tend to admire people who go for what they believe in, like David Lynch for example, and just say what goes through their heads, and are not afraid of people not accepting them. I have no respect for people who deliberately try to be weird to attract attention, but if that's who you honestly are, you shouldn't try to "normalize yourself". It's a fine line."

"The first thing I ever thought of when I thought of Buffy, the movie, was the little...blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed, in every horror movie. The idea of Buffy was to subvert that idea, that image, and create someone who was a hero where she had always been a victim. That element of surprise … genre-busting is very much at the heart of both the movie and the series."

"I think there's a lot of people out there who say we must not have horror in any form, we must not say scary things to children because it will make them evil and disturbed... That offends me deeply, because the world is a scary and horrifying place, and everyone's going to get old and die, if they're that lucky. To set children up to think that everything is sunshine and roses is doing them a great disservice. Children need horror because there are things they don't understand. It helps them to codify it if it is mythologized, if it's put into the context of a story, whether the story has a happy ending or not. If it scares them and shows them a little bit of the dark side of the world that is there and always will be, it's helping them out when they have to face it as adults."

"I believe we are the only sentient beings in the universe, and I believe that 500 years from now, we will still be the only sentient beings around. … Aliens are something everyone else is doing."

"Very occasionally, if you really pay attention, life doesn’t suck."

"You can either watch TV or you can make TV."

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn."

"The network called up and said 'We piggybacked you on the deal for another show,' I'm like 'Okay, so what you're saying to my writers is that they weren't picked up when they thought they were and now that they are it was because of something that has nothing to do with them. Okay. Great. Stop calling'."

"My visions of the future are always pretty much standard issue. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer... and there are flying cars."

"The English language is my bitch. Or I don't speak it very well. Whatever."

"Let freedom ring, unless it's on vibrate."

"Veronica solves little puzzles because she, like all of us, cannot unravel the bigger ones."

"I don't actually have anything against anybody, unless their belief precludes everybody else's. … I am an atheist and an absurdist and I have been for many years. I've actually taken a huge amount of flack for that."

"I believe the only reality is how we treat each other. The morality comes from the absence of any grander scheme, not from the presence of any grander scheme."

"If I made a series of lectures on PBS on why there should be feminism, no one would be coming to the party, and it would be boring. The idea of changing culture is important to me, and it can only be done in a popular medium."

"Stay crunchy, even in milk."

"I know there's been some debate about the DVD art. Just remember it's what's INside that counts, as I used to remind girls in high school constantly. CONSTANTLY — until I realized that I was empty inside. Empty and homely. Man, that's a rough combo."

"The actors can make up their dialogue. I'm bushed, and they're all funny, and the hell with it. Maybe I'll give them a premise to work off of, like "You're all in trouble" or "Wash has a thing". They could maybe light it too."

"People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy."

"People with real power never fear of losing it. People with control think of little else."

"SENTINEL: Is dead Buffy actually a robot?"

"Joss: Um, no. Dead Buffy's a Buffy. But a dead one."

"Get out of my BRAIN!"

"The greatest expression of rebellion is joy."

"There is nothing more painful in the world than Aly when she makes her big eyes. She makes her big hurt eyes, there's nothing you can do. She just kills you."

"I think that people need two kinds of fulfillment — one in which you give and one in which you hold back. Part of fulfillment is need, is longing, is being unfulfilled, that’s the nature of tragedy and a lot of drama. Very often, what the fans want, they get. But very often, what they want, they can’t quite have, because we want them to feel the way our characters felt..."

"Hello, I'm the writer and director. Now take your clothes off and get on top of Morena."

"Q: So, why do you write these strong female characters? A: Because you’re still asking me that question."

"I have had a dream my whole life... and it was not this good."

"All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet — it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you."

"If I ever did a rom-com, it'd be about an orgy. I cannot do anything except ensemble-pieces. It's awful!"

"We’re talking about a malevolent force, We’re talking about a bad actor in both senses."

"If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."

"You only have to look at the chubby little goblin and you see Gamma face. Puffy and pinched with sunken piggy eyes. The Germans have a word, Backpfeifengesicht, a face in need of a fist. Just looking at a picture of Whedon and any normal man feels his fingers instinctively start to clench."

"Whedon as man appears to have inspired no loyalty at all from the people that worked for him."

"Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working together on the sets of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. While he found his misconduct amusing, it only served to intensify my performance anxiety, disempower me, and alienate me from my peers. The disturbing incidents triggered a chronic physical condition from which I still suffer. It is with a beating, heavy heart that I say I coped in isolation and, at times, destructively. Last summer, when Ray Fisher publicly accused Joss of abusive and unprofessional behaviour toward the cast and crew during reshoots on the Justice League set in 2017, it gutted me. Joss has a history of being casually cruel. He has created hostile and toxic work environments since his early career. I know because I experienced it first-hand. Repeatedly."

"Joss intentionally refused multiple calls from my agents making it impossible to connect with him to tell him the news that I was pregnant. Finally, once Joss was apprised of the situation, he requested a meeting with me. In that closed-door meeting, he asked me if I was "going to keep it" and manipulatively weaponized my womanhood and faith against me. He proceeded to attack my character, mock my religious beliefs, accuse me of sabotaging the show, and then unceremoniously fired me the following season once I gave birth."

"It is abundantly evident that Joss has persisted in his harmful actions, continuing to create wreckage in his wake. My hope now, by finally coming forward about these experiences, is to create space for the healing of others who I know have experienced similar serialized abuses of power."

"During one scene, I had to do a shooting drill. He put a psychological spin on it."

"I was brought up in a very logical place," said Linz, who had his bar mitzvah at Wilshire Boulevard Temple. "But I think they would [happen]."

"Art is an act of the soul, not of the intellect. When we are dealing with people's dreams — their visions, really — we are in the realm of the sacred. We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We invoke the Great Creator when we invoke our own creativity, and that creative force has the power to alter lives, fulfill destinies, and answer our dreams."

"Nothing dies harder than a bad idea. And few ideas are worse than the ones we have about art."

"Anger is meant to be acted on. It is not meant to be acted out. Anger points the direction. We are meant to use anger as fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us. With a little thought, we can usually translate the message that our anger is sending us."

"I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow."

"Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself."

"The perfectionist is never satisfied. The perfectionist never says, "This is pretty good. I think I’ll just keep going." To the perfectionist, there is always room for improvement. The perfectionist call this humility. In reality, it is egotism. It is pride that makes us want to write a perfect script, paint a perfect painting, perform a perfect audition monologue. Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough — that we should try again. No. We should not."

"What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us."

"Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite — getting something down."

"Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. And the faith to trust our own admission. The admitting is often very difficult."

"Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness. We need to acknowledge this. All too often, we think only in terms of light: "And then the lightbulb went on and I got it!" It is true that insights may come to us as flashes. It is true that some of these flashes may be blinding. It is, however, also true that such bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary."

"All too often too often we try to push, pull, outline and control our ideas instead of letting them grow organically. The creative process is a process of surrender, not control."

"Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise."

"For most of us, the seductive and unstated part of "if I had enough time" is the unstated sentence "to hear myself think." In other words, we imagine that if we had time we would quiet our more shallow selves and listen to a deeper flow of inspiration. Again, this is a myth that lets us off the hook— if I wait for enough time to listen, I don't have to listen now, I don't have to take responsibility for what is trying to bubble up today."

"Life is a creative endeavor. It is active, not passive. We are the yeast that leavens our lives into rich, fully baked loaves. When we experience our lives as flat and lackluster, it is our consciousness that is at fault. We hold the inner key that turns our lives from thankless to fruitful. That key is "Blessing.""

"Focused on our good, focused on our abundance we naturally attract more of the same. This is spiritual law. Our consciousness is creative. What we focus on, we empower and enlarge. Good multiplies when focused upon. Negativity multiplies when focused upon. The choice is ours: Which do we want more of?"

"Love is the substance of all life. Everything is connected in love, absolutely everything."

"When I listen to love, I am listening to my true nature. When I express love, I am expressing my true nature. All of us love. All of us do it more and more perfectly. The past has brought us both ashes and diamonds. In the present we find the flowers of what we've planted and the seeds of what we are becoming. I plant the seeds of love in my heart. I plant the seeds of love in the hearts of others."

"The growth of one blesses all. I am committed to grow in love. All that I touch, I leave in love. I move through this world consciously and creatively."

"Love is not love if it compelled by reason and driven by logic — love exists in spite of those things, not because of them. It is a emotion which needs no fuel to fire it or oxygen to feed it; if you have to look for the why, then stop looking; it was never there at all."

"I honor my importance and the importance of others. None of us is dispensable, none of us is replacable. In the chorus of life each of us brings a True Note, a perfect pitch that adds to the harmony of the whole. I act creatively and consciously to actively endorse and encourage the expansion of those whose lives I touch. Believing in the goodness of each, I add to the goodness of all. We bless each other even in passing."

"You can't beat white people, you can only knock them out."

"You can't be happy that fire cooks your food and be mad it burns your fingertips."

"I hope that Live Earth ends global warming the same way the Live Aid ended world poverty."

"Comedy is the blues for people who can't sing."

"Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C.B. is such a loser. He wasn't even the star of his own Halloween special."

"Our next presenter is the first woman to ever breast-feed an Apple – Gwyneth Paltrow."

"The only acting you ever see at the Oscars is when people act like they're not mad they lost. Nicole Kidman was smiling so wide, she should have won an Emmy at the Oscars for her great performance. I was like, "If you'd done that in the movie, you'd have won an Oscar, girl.""

"Have you been watching American Idol? They have Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul judging the singing. Paula Abdul?! Getting Paula Abdul to judge a singing contest is like getting Christopher Reeve to judge a dance contest!"

"When I heard they were trying and get rid of the word "nigga", I told my accountant to buy 800 shares of "coon"."

"You won't be able to take your eyes off the next four presenters: Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz."

"George Bush hates midgets."

"Yo, what's up! This is Chris Rock, and I'm with my man Lil Jon, and we stay in the club! We live in the club! We die in the club! We get our car washed in the club! We go to school in the club! We go to the cleaners in the club! We do everything in the motherfucking club! We go to church in the club! We never leave the motherfucking club! We pay our taxes in the club! We go to library in the club!"

"Black Santa Claus caused more tears than the Tampa Bay Devil Rays."

"They don't want you to vote. If they did, we wouldn't vote on a Tuesday. In November. You ever throw a party on a Tuesday? No. Because nobody would come."

"Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren't free but I'm sure they enjoyed fireworks"

"[Interviewer asks: "How do you feel like things have changed over the past couple decades?"]<br"

"You would think that cops would occasionally shoot a white kid, just to make it look good. You'd think every couple of months they'd look at their dead nigga calendar and go, "Oh my God, we're up to 16. We gotta shoot a white kid quick." "Uh, which one?" "The first one you see singing Cardi B." That's right. I mean, honestly, I wanna live in a world with real equality. I want to live in a world where an equal amount of white kids are shot every month. An equal world. I want to see white mothers on TV crying. Standing next to Al Sharpton. Talking about, "We need justice for Chad. We need justice for Chad. He was just coming home from racquetball practice.""

"Here's the thing. I know it's hard being a cop. I know it's hard. I know that shit's dangerous. I know it is, OK? But some jobs can't have bad apples. OK? Some jobs, everybody gotta be good. Like— pilots. You know? American Airlines can't be like, "You know, most of our pilots like to land. We just got a few bad apples, that like to crash into mountains. Please bear with us.""

"Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it, all right?"

"Oh, wow! Wow! Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me. [...] That was a... greatest night in the history of television, okay."

"Do you know what the good side of crack is? If you're up at the right hour, you can get a VCR for $1.50. You can furnish your whole house for $10.95."

"A black man failing black history... ain't that some sad shit..... cuz you know, fat people don't fail cooking!"

"People are starving all over the world, what do you mean, "red meat will kill you"? Don't eat no red meat? No, don't eat no green meat. If you lucky enough to get your hands on a steak, bite the shit out of it!"

"We got so much food in America we're allergic to food. Allergic to food! Hungry people ain't allergic to shit. You think anyone in Rwanda's got a fucking lactose intolerance?!"

"That shit wasn't about race &hellip; that shit was about fame. If O.J. wasn't famous, he'd be in jail right now. If O.J. drove a bus, he wouldn't even be O.J. He'd be Orenthal the Bus Driving Murderer."

"So you gotta look at OJ's situation. He's paying $25,000 a month in alimony, got another man driving around in his car and fucking his wife in a house he's still paying the mortgage on. Now I'm not saying he should have killed her... but I understand."

"There's a lot of racism going on. Who's more racist, black people or white people? Black people! You know why? Because we hate black people too! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people really don't like about black people. There's some shit going on with black people right now. It's like a civil war going on with black people. And there's two sides, there's black people and there's niggas. The niggas have got to go. Everytime a black person wanna have a good time, ignorant-ass niggas fuck it up. You can't have shit when you got niggas around, you can't have shit. You can't have no big screen TV! You can have it, but you better move it in at 3 in the morning. Paint it white, hope niggas think it's a bassinet. Can't have shit in your house! Why?! Because niggas will break into your house. Niggas will live next door to you break into your house, come over the next day and go, "I heard you got robbed." Nigga, you know you robbed me. You didn't see shit 'cause you was doing shit! You can't go see a movie opening day, you know why? 'Cause niggas is shooting at the screen! What kind of ignorant shit is that? "This movie's so good I gotta bust a cap in here!" You know the worst thing about niggas? Niggas always want credit for some shit they supposed to do. A nigga will brag about some shit a normal man just does. A nigga will say some shit like, "I take care of my kids." You're supposed to, you dumb motherfucker! What kind of ignorant shit is that? "I ain't never been to jail!" What do you want, a cookie?! You're not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having motherfucker!"

"Community college is like a disco with books: "Here's ten dollars; let me get my learn on!""

"Every man has to settle down eventually. You know why you gotta settle down eventually? Because you don't want to be the old guy in the club. You know what I'm talking about. Every club you go into, there's always some old guy. He ain't really old, just a little too old to be in the club."

"I hate niggas! I hate em! I wish they'd let me join the Ku Klux Klan! Shit, I'd be doing a drive-by from here to Brooklyn!"

"You know what they say, "There's no reason to ever hit a woman." Shit! There's a reason to hit everybody. You just don't do it. Shit, there's a reason to kick an old man down a flight of stairs. You just don't do it. Ain't nobody above an ass-whooping."

"You know what GED stands for? Good Enough Diploma."

"Yo, man. R&B sucks. I mean it's a couple of people that float, but, look, for the most part, the genre sucks. Just a bunch of people singing over rap beats. You don't like a rap record? Sing over it! Everybody talking them label. "Label this, label that!" Hey, Smokey Robinson wasn't singing about Motown! Look, the Isley Brothers wasn't going "T-Neck in the motherfuckin' house". The Jacksons were not singing about Epic because nobody gave a fuck!"

"Hey, this is a joke that I wrote a long time ago. I actually, I really really, wrote this joke. [Following in reverse] So I'm walking down the street, right? And I saw this prostitute, right? And I said, 'How much?' She said, 'For $300, I'll do anything you want.' I said, 'Bitch, paint my house!'"

"Yo, my first choice for the producer of this album was not Prince Paul. It was Roger Troutman and the group Zapp. Let's see how that would have sounded. (The following run through a Talk box): A black man boy said to a Cadillac dealer. And he's looking at some Cadillacs. And the dealer of Zohan says "are you thinking of buying a Cadillac?" And, he says, "No, I'm buying a Cadillac. I'm thinking of pussy... yeah!""

"So, it's last Wednesday, right? I'm chilling' in my house in a pair of and getting ready to watch the game. You know what she had the nerve to say? Exactly! I thought the woman was crazy. But, then, you know what else she wanted me to do? So, I'm in my car, right? "Uh, Chris. I'm gonna tell you something." Nigga, what? You're wanted in 18 states and 2 territories! Nigga, what did you do? With a seal? How the hell you gonna do something like that with a seal? You know, that don't sound too bad. I'll try it with my woman. Like that? Get outta here! With oil? So, I'm dead! Just chilling' in Heaven! With my man Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, Biggie, Tupac, Vanilla, my Bu2u, Sam Kinison and there's God. And I'm like, "God, you know everything. I can ask you one question. Who won the game?""

"The Trenchcoat Mafia. "Nobody will play with us, we have no friends, we're the Trenchcoat Mafia." Hell, I saw the yearbook picture, it was six of 'em! I ain't have six friends in high school. I don't got six friends now! Shit, that's 3-on-3 with a half-court!"

"Everybody want to know what the kids was listening to, what kind of music they was listening to, or what kind of movies they was watching. Who gives a fuck what they was watching? Whatever happened to CRAZY?"

"You don't need no gun control. You know what you need? We need some bullet control. We need to control the bullets! That's right. I think all bullets should cost $5,000. $5,000 for a bullet. You know why? Because if a bullet costs $5,000, there would be no more innocent bystanders. Every time somebody gets shot, people would be like, "Damn, he must've did something. Shit, they put $50,000 worth of bullets in his ass!" And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost $5,000. "Man, I would blow your fucking head off ... if I could afford it! I'm gonna get me another job, I'm gonna start saving some money, and you're a dead man! You better hope I can't get no bullets on layaway!""

"See, even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you won't have to go to no doctor to get it out, whoever shot you will take that bullet back! "I believe you got my property!""

"I mean, they don't grade fathers. But if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up."

"My favorite song right now is impossible to defend. It's impossible. We should all be ashamed of ourselves for liking this fucking song. Lil Jon. You know that shit: "To the window! To the wall! [crowd sings along] 'Till the sweat drip from my balls! Skeet, skeet, skeet, skeet!" You go to clubs, you see girls dance to that shit. "Till the sweat drip from my balls! Till the sweat drip from my balls! From my balls! From my balls! My balls! Skeet, Skeet Skeet!" I feel sorry for the guys that gotta pick a wife out of this bunch. It's like, "Daddy, where'd you meet Mommy?" "Oh, she was singing about balls at a club. Skeet, skeet, skeet!""

"Daddy, can we talk?" "Hey, I'm watching the game!" "I'll show you! I'll dance naked to Mötley Crue records! I'm gonna change my name to Cina Buns and I'm gonna wear clear heels!" When did clear heels become the new whore uniform? When did that happen? Was there a big ho convention, and all the hoes got together and said, "We need something new! Something that just says nasty" And one girl said, "I got it! Clear heels!" "Ooh, girl, you disgusting!"

"Women don't care, man. If the beat's all right, she will dance all night! I've seen girls on the floor dancing to the nastiest shit ever made. It's like, "Smack her with a dick, smack her with a dick! &hellip; I put a dick in the ear, a dick in the ear! &hellip; Fuck her in the eye, fuck her in the eye! &hellip; Blind the bitch, blind the bitch, blind the bitch, blind the bitch with cum!""

"If you mention to a woman that the song is disgusting and misogynistic, they all give you the same answer: "He ain't talking 'bout me!" Smack her with a dick, smack her with a dick &hellip; He said your name! "No, he didn't!" Smack her with a dick, smack her with a dick &hellip;"

"You know those guys that go to the strip club at the daytime? If you're at a strip club and the sun is out, you got some problems!"

"You know those guys that eat at the strip club? Eat the buffet? How the fuck could you eat in a nasty-ass strip club? What? Are you THAT hungry? Motherfucker, go to Mickey D's or some shit! Not even Rwandan refugees eat that shit! At a damn strip club! Titties and tater tots don't mix!"

"You know the stripper myth? There's a stripper myth that's being perpetuated throughout society. The myth is, I'm strippin' to pay my tuition. No you're not! There's no strippers in college! There's no clear heels in biology! Shit, man, I didn't know they had a college that only took one-dollar bills. And if they got so many strippers at college, how come I never got a smart lap dance? I never got a girl that sat on my lap and said, If I was you, I would diversify my portfolio. You know, ever since the end of the Cold War, I find NATO obsolete!."

"The government hates rap. That's why they don't arrest anybody that kills rappers! Only the good ones are dead, man! Only the good ones: Biggie dead, Tupac dead, Vanilla Ice still alive! They don't fill out a police report. They don't even have a chalk line when it's a dead rapper, they just take a piss around the body."

"Hey, man don't let all this celebrity garbage fool you. It's all just a trick to get your mind...off...the...war. I think Bush sent that girl to Kobe's room. Bush sent that girl to Kobe's room, Bush sent that little boy to Michael Jackson's house. Bush killed Laci Peterson. Bush was fucking Paris Hilton in that video. All to get your mind off the war. Bush lied to me, they all lied to me: "We gotta go to Iraq because they're the most dangerous country on Earth. They're the most dangerous regime in the world." If they're so dangerous, how come it only took two weeks to take over the whole fucking country? Shit, man, you couldn't take over Baltimore in two weeks."

"White man makes guns. Big deal, nobody gives a fuck, kids shoot each other at school, nobody gives a fuck. White man makes guns? No problem. Black rapper says "guns"? Congressional hearing. "Oh, my God, that nigga said gun, and he rhymed it with fun"!"

"Are we so desperate for entertainment that we will fall for a trickless magician?? Where the fuck's the trick? Saw a woman in half. Pull a rabbit out of a hat. Do something! What tricks does this guy have? "I'm in a box...and I ain't gonna eat". "I'm in a box...and I ain't gonna eat"!! That ain't no trick! That's called living in the projects!"

"Ed Bradley looked at Michael Jackson like he wanted to say, "Nigga, is you crazy?" Like he wanted to take the 60 Minutes clock and push the shit forward to say, "Nigga, what the fuck is wrong with you?" "I thought you said it was 60 minutes &hellip;" "It's 10 minutes, get outta here! You nutty nigga, what the fuck is wrong with you?""

"Black people dominate every physical activity in the United States of America. We're only 10% of the population, we're 90% of the Final Four. Okay? We fucking dominate all this shit! Okay? Basketball, baseball, football, boxing, track- even golf and tennis! And as soon they make a heated hockey rink, we're gonna take that shit, too. Motherfuck Wayne Gretzky. Wait 'till you see LeBron on some skates. You ain't seen shit yet! He just gonna have one skate, chilling. "What's up?" He won't even have a stick, he'll just smack the puck in with his dick. Pow! "Slapshot, bee-otch!""

"That tiger ain't go crazy; that tiger went tiger! You know when he was really crazy? When he was riding around on a unicycle with a Hitler helmet on! "Oh, shit! I'm a crazy tiger!""

"A black C student can't do shit with his life. A black C student can't be a manager at Burger King. Meanwhile, a white C student just happens to be the President of the United States."

"Remember when we was young, everybody used to have these arguments about who's better, Michael Jackson or Prince? Prince won!"

"R. Kelly's got a lot of balls. Talking about "it ain't me." Got a damn sex tape out; "it ain't me." Motherfucker, we know what you look like. That's you, okay? There's a damn Soul Train award right next to the bed."

"What is on Kobe's mind? Going to Colorado, around all these white people, and not bringing Johnnie Cochran? Well then they say, "well if you hire Johnnie Cochran, you're going to look guilty." Yeah, but you going home! You want to look innocent in jail? I'd rather look guilty at the mall."

"It's hard to defend "I've got hoes in different area codes". It's hard to defend "move, bitch, get out the way!" It's hard to break it down intellectually &hellip; "Well, as you can see, there's a bitch in his way, that he needs to move. Thus the term, "move, bitch, get out the way". You need to open your eyes so you can get the bitches out of your way!""

"You know the only thing you can do to stop your man from cheating? The only thing you can do &hellip; is be there. Where? There! Wherever he's thinking about fucking, that's it. Just be right there. And even then he still might lose your ass. He's like, "Honey, look! A Sale! Let me go fuck this bitch right now!""

"If you wanna get away with murder, all you gotta do is shoot somebody in the head and put a demo tape in their pocket! "This is a rap killing. Let's go home!""

"Everybody's so busy wanting to be down with the gang. "I'm conservative", "I'm liberal", "I'm conservative". Bullshit! Be a fucking person! Lis-ten! Let it swirl around your head. Then form your opinion. No normal, decent person is one thing, okay? I've got some shit I'm conservative about, I've got some shit I'm liberal about. Crime, I'm conservative. Prostitution, I'm liberal!"

"Shaq is rich. The white man who signs his check &hellip; is wealthy. "Ah, here you go, Shaq. Go buy yourself a bouncing car. Bling, bling!""

"You know the beautiful thing about the gay marriage issue? It's the absolute only issue that the President will answer. The President don't give a fuck. He will give you a straight answer on gay marriage. "Uh, Mr. President, what about the war? When's it gonna end?" "Well, you never know. We're talking to people, and we're looking for stuff, and we might find it, we might not, and it's out there, we're gonna get it, you never know. How's it going? Yeah!" "Uh, Mr. President, what about the economy, when's it gonna pick up?" "Well, you never know, we're talking to people, and economic indicators indicate that indications are coming to the indicator. You know what I'm saying? All right!" "Uh, Mr. President, what about gay marriage?" "Fuck them faggots!""

"You can be married and bored, or single and lonely. Ain't no happiness nowhere."

"If you haven't contemplated murder, you ain't been in love. If you haven't seriously thought about killing a motherfucker, you ain't been in love. If you haven't had a can of rat poison in your hand and looked at it for forty-five minutes straight, you ain't been in love. If you haven't bought a shovel and a bag and a rug to roll their ass up in, you ain't been in love. If you haven't practiced your alibi in front of the mirror, you ain't been in love. And the only thing that's stopped you from killing this motherfucker was a episode of CSI: "Oh man, they thorough. I better make up. They might catch my ass.""

"See... Relationships are hard, man. For order, for any relationship to work, both people have to be on the same page, both people have to have the same focus, and we all know what that page is. We all know what that focus is. In order for the relationship to work both people have to have the same focus, and what's that focus? That focus is all about HER! It's all about her!"

"Fellas, when you wake up in the morning, you should look yourself in the mirror and say, "FUCK YOU! Fuck your hopes, fuck your dreams, fuck your plans &hellip; fuck everything you thought this life was going to bring to you. Now let's go out there and try to make this bitch happy.""

"Women hate women. You get any two girlfriends in this room, been girlfriends for twenty five years, you put a man in between them &hellip; "fuck that bitch," "fuck that bitch." Guys are not like that. Guys actually think that there are other fish in the sea, and if a guy introduces his boy to his new girlfriend, and when they walk away, his boy goes, "Oh man, she's nice, I gotta get me a girl like that." If a woman introduces her new man to her girlfriend, and they walk away, her girlfriend goes, "I gotta get him, and I will slit that bitch's throat to do it." Every girl in here got a girlfriend they don't trust around their man."

"But here's what they don't tell you. You can never make a woman happy, it's impossible. I've never met a happy woman in my life. They're always complaining about something. You can fuck a woman with a diamond dick and make her come ten times, and she'll still complain. "Why did you make me come so hard? This diamond dick is cloudy, why didn't you go to Tiffany's? You're so fucking cheap.""

"What's in the tea?" "Water, bitch!"

"Whenever I go out with other married couples, I like to bring along a single crackhead. Just to spice things up."

"Even if you meet the perfect person, it ain't gonna be at the perfect time. You're married, they're single. That's right. You're Jewish, they're Palestinian. You're a Mexican, they're a raccoon. You're a black woman, he's a black man."

"God will send you a double date with the perfect couple. Have you ever made the mistake of going on a double date with the perfect couple? You're in the middle of your bullshit relationship and you actually sit down with two people that are actually in love. You can't even eat your food cause you can't believe what the fuck you are witnessing. You got a fork in your hand like, "Oh shit! He's really listening to what she's got to say! Wow! They really like being around each other! Man, we can't hang with them no more, they gonna break us up. Can't let these happy motherfuckers fuck up my life!""

"So if you're black or brown, you can make money in America, you can get rich in America &hellip; but whatever you decide to do, it better be positive, 'cause if one person is harmed, you will be destroyed. You see Oprah, she just be giving away money. She's trying keep the Feds off her back."

"We can't have gay marriage 'cause marriage is sacred, it happens in the church. Marriage is sacred, it's sacred. No, it's not, not in America, not in a country that watches Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? and The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and Who Wants to Marry a Midget. Get the fuck outta here. Shit, Michael Jackson got married, how fucking sacred is that shit?"

"White man makes alcohol. Tastes great, I love it, you love it, we all love it. Kills motherfuckers every single day. Okay? Some of y'all ain't even make it home tonight 'cause of alcohol. You'll be like, "Oh man, that Chris Rock sure is funny, oh! Shit!" But it's all right 'cause it's all white. White man makes Cigarettes, the most dangerous product known to man. Cigarettes are so fucking dangerous it kills motherfuckers that don't smoke, okay? That's how fucking dangerous cigarettes are, okay? Yes, first hand smoke, second hand smoke. People talking out of their necks into a machine like, "Hey, what's up, man, I love cigarettes." But it's all right 'cause it's all white. Could you imagine if the Philip Morris family was a bunch of jheri-curled niggas from Mississippi? Do you know how illegal a pack of cigarettes would be? You would get fifty years just for a carton of Newports. Shit. But it's all right, 'cause it's all white."

"So think about the poor slave who could read, but was scared to teach their kids to read for fear they would be killing their kids. Think about the poor slave that rode to town every week. Think about the poor slave who rode the buggy to town every week. Riding the buggy &hellip; riding the buggy, and he could read, and is riding the buggy and he's riding the buggy. And up ahead he sees a busy intersection, and is riding the buggy and he's riding the buggy. Then he sees a STOP sign &hellip; Now he's in a big dilemma. "If I go through this intersection, I'm a have a accident. If I stop, these crackers will kill me." And he's riding the buggy, and in the last minute he says "fuck it", goes through the intersection, has a big ol' accident. Almost kills somebody. Then the police come: "Nigga, what is wrong with you? Nigga, what the fuck is wrong with you? You could have killed somebody, nigga. Didn't see that stop sign?" "Oh, I don't know what you talking about, sir." "You didn't see that stop sign, that stop sign back there?" "Oh, you mean that octagon thing." "Nigga, who taught you octagon?""

"It's beautiful that abortion is legal in America. I love going to abortion rallies to pick up women, 'cause you know they're fucking. You ain't gonna find a bunch of virgins at the abortion rally. You might even see some clear heels!"

"Oh the abortion issue, it's a woman's issue. When a woman get pregnant, she don't want to hear shit from the man. Fuck you, motherfuck you, I don't need you. Unless she decides to have the baby and she's like, "Where my check?""

"When a woman get pregnant, it's an issue between her and her girlfriends. When a woman get pregnant, her and her girlfriends form an abortion tribunal, and they vote on the child like it was Survivor. Then the first girlfriend throws in her two cents: "Child, you should have that baby, that man got some good hair, it's wavy, it's wavy." Then second girlfriend throws in her two cents: "Girl, why are we even talking about this? Ain't we supposed to go to Cancun next weekend? Get rid of that baby." And that's how life is decided in America."

"The number one reason people hate America: the number one reason is because of our religion. Americans worship money, we worship money. Separate God from school, separate God from work, separate God from government, but on your money it says in God we trust. All my life I've been looking for God, and He's right in my pocket. Americans worship money, and we all go to the same church, the church of ATM. Everywhere you look there's a new branch popping up &hellip; remind you about how much money you got and how much money you don't got. And if you got less than twenty dollars, the machine won't even talk to you. The machine is like, "You better go see a teller." You ever go to a teller and try to take out eight dollars and fifty cents? Oh, it's disgusting &hellip; oh man, you gotta wait on that long ass line, people doing real transactions in front of you, you get on to the fucking front, you fill out your form, eight fifty. The fucking teller looks at it, she look at you, she looks at the check, she don't even take the money out of the drawer, she take it out of her pocket, "Here you go, get outta here." And here's something, man. Drugs are illegal, but ATM machines are open twenty-four hours a day. Twenty-four hours a day. For who? Who the fuck is it open for? Have you ever taken out three hundred dollars at four o'clock in the morning for something positive? Shit, when you press that machine at four o'clock in the morning, I think a psychiatrist should pop up on the screen and go, "Come on, man, save your money, man. Don't buy drugs, buy some rims. They spinning, nigga, they spinning, they spinning, nigga, they spinning." Americans worship money. Shit, you know why banks are closed on Sunday? 'Cause if they wasn't, church would be empty."

"Is it just me, or is he the greasiest nigga you ever seen in your life? Every time Jermaine comes on, I gotta wipe the grease off the screen! Can't see shit! Jermaine must have been on. Even the police can't catch his ass, 'cause every time they try, he just slips out! They be like, "Somebody throw some sand on that nigga! Please!""

"Shit, every woman in here got a girlfriend they don't trust around their man. A good girlfriend too, it's like, "Yeah, I'll go shopping with her, but I ain't gonna leave that bitch alone with my man for five minutes, no." I remember one time, I was at a restaurant with me, my wife, and her girlfriend. And my wife gets up and goes, "Honey, I'm going to the bathroom." And I'm like, "All right, honey, I'll see you when you get back." And she goes, "No, you coming with me!" She made me come with her to the bathroom! And she did the right thing, 'cause I'd have fucked the girl; I'da fucked her. I'd have fucked her on a damn quesadilla, I didn't give a fuck."

"Oprah is rich, Bill Gates is wealthy. If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah's money, he'd jump out a fuckin' window and slit his throat on the way down saying, "I can't even put gas in my plane!""

"[In deep voice] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to WLOW, Low Radio. Now a lot of rappers out there would like to tell the girls to get low, but tonight we're gonna tell you to get lower. That's right! In the ground, under the ground! Get in the mud, bitch! Dig to China, hoe! I don't even know why the fuck you are standing! It's time for you to get lower! Now some of you bitches are still standing, and I don't understand that, 'cuz I want y'all to get low! I'm talking REAL low! I want you so low that you can change an ant's transmission! I want you so low that Aquaman says "Bitch, what the fuck are you doing under the ocean!?""

"Hey, man, fuck y'all! I ain't telling you motherfuckers shit! You motherfuckers can suck my dick! I don't know what the fuck you talking about! Let me get the fuck out of this motherfucker, 'cuz I got shit to do, bitch!"

"I don't give a fuck! So, what!? Motherfuck the tiger! I'd be shot in the tooth, motherfucker! I don't give a fuck about your bee-otches!"

"Who'd... you think I'd give a fuck!? I don't give a fuck about no motherfucking chainsaw! I got two black wives, motherfucker! Fuck y'all!"

"You mean to tell me that Jamaicans invented sugar, reggae and the best drug on Earth and the white man makes all the money!?"

"You mean to tell me that Hawaiians came up with pineapples, resorts, hula hoops, Magnum P.I. and the best damn punch in the world and they don't get no money from it!?"

"You mean to tell me that for the last sixty years, the white man's been traveling to outer space, murdering Martians, telling us there's no life up there, building casinos and resorts while he fucks some of the finest bitches in the galaxy, and niggas just want rims!?"

"George Bush has fucked up so bad, he made it hard for a white man to run for president! People are like "give me a black man, a white woman, a giraffe, a zebra...anything but another white man! That last one fucked up my roof!""

"[on John McCain] I don't need a president with a bucket list!"

"[on John McCain being too old] When you die at 72, no matter what you die of, it's natural causes. Even if you get hit by a truck, it's natural causes. 'Cause if you was younger, you'd have got out the way!"

"[on John McCain being in a POW camp] I don't wanna vote for nobody who got captured, I wanna vote for the motherfucker that got away!"

"[in South Africa] Barack Obama! A black man! With a black name! I know that ain't that black here, but in America that's about as black as a name could get. Barack Obama! That's right next to Dikembe Mutombo. That's right. Barack, man, he don't let his blackness sneak up on you. Y'know, if his name was Bob Jones or something, it might take you two or three weeks to realize he black. But as soon as you hear "Barack Obama"...you expect to see a brother with a spear! Just standin' on top of a dead lion! Barack Obama! You expect to see the bass player from the Commodores come out! [sings and mimes playing bass] "Too hot ta trot, now, baby, too hot ta trot, bay-by!" I'm not talkin' about Lionel Richie, I'm talkin' about them shiny niggas behind him!"

"[about Obama] We're not just voting for him 'cause he's black, we're voting for him 'cause he's black and qualified. That's why we're voting for the motherfucker. Yeah. That's why we behind him. It's not like we're voting for Flavor Flav. "Yeeeeah, boooooy! Flavor Flaaaav!" Hey, I love Flavor. Lovin' him for 20 years. I love the "Flavor of Love" show; I think it's quite entertainin'. But Flavor Flav must be killed. In order for black people to truly reach the promised land, Flavor Flav has to be shot. These are important times! We got a black man runnin' for President! We don't need a nigger runnin' around with a fuckin' clock around his neck and a Viking hat on his head! "Not this year, Flav, put a suit on! Nigga, put a suit on!""

"Yo, it's gonna be hard for Barack Obama to be President, 'cause Barack Obama has to overcome a handicap that the other candidate does not have to overcome. That's right. It's gonna be hard for Barack Obama to be President because Barack Obama has...a black wife. And I don't think a black lady can be First Lady of the United States. Yeah, I said it. I said it in Johannesburg, I said it! [cuts to London] I said it in London, England, I said that shit! [cuts to New York] I said it at the Apollo Theatre, I said that shit! I don't believe a black woman could be First Lady, 'cause you know why? Because a black woman cannot play the background of a relationship! [some women boo] Don't get me wrong, a black woman could be President with no problem. First Lady--too much shuttin' up in that job. Can you imagine tellin' your black wife that you President? "Honey, I won, I'm President!" "No, we President! And I want my girlfriends in the cabinet! I want Kiki to be Secretary of Defense! She can fight, she can fight.""

"George Bush is still in charge. And nobody gives less of a fuck than George Bush. You think you don't give a fuck? Bush don't give a fuck. Nobody gives less of a fuck than George Bush. If you was hangin' from a cliff, gettin' ready to fall to your death--that's right--and Bush was at the top of the cliff, and all you needed was a fuck to save your life, and Bush had a pocket full of fucks...he wouldn't give you one. "Hey, Bush, I need a fuck!" "Ohh, you know I don't give a fuck. Here's a fuck...psych!""

"I will give you an example of how race affects my life. I live in a place called Alpine, New Jersey. Live in Alpine, New Jersey, right? My house costs millions of dollars. [some whistles and cheers from the audience] Don't hate the player, hate the game. In my neighborhood, there are four black people. Hundreds of houses, four black people. Who are these black people? Well, there's me, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z and Eddie Murphy. Only black people in the whole neighborhood. So let's break it down, let's break it down: me, I'm a decent comedian. I'm a'ight. [applause] Mary J. Blige, one of the greatest R&B singers to ever walk the Earth. Jay-Z, one of the greatest rappers to ever live. Eddie Murphy, one of the funniest actors to ever, ever do it. Do you know what the white man who lives next door to me does for a living? He's a fucking dentist! He ain't the best dentist in the world...he ain't going to the dental hall of fame...he don't get plaques for getting rid of plaque. He's just a yank-your-tooth-out dentist. See, the black man gotta fly to get to somethin' the white man can walk to."

"There's nothin' a white person could ever say to me that will ever catch me off-guard. Ever! I'm always lookin' for some racism! No matter where the fuck I'm at, I'm like "where the racism at? Where it at, where it at, where it at?" No matter where I'm at. I could be sittin' down with Regis Philbin, doin' an interview, talkin' about Madagascar 2, sayin' "yeah, Regis, Madagascar 2's real good, man. I play a zebra again! Oh, this motherfucker's great!" And right in the middle of the interview, Regis'll pull a pencil out of his pocket, stab me in the neck and say "take that, ya fuckin' nigger! Take that, ya dirty, greasy nigger! Take that, ya fuckin' nigger!" And I'd be like "I shoulda seen it comin'. I let Regis get too close." I'll be mad at me. I'll apologize--"hey, man, I left my neck all out, man. I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry.""

"[on Isaiah Washington being fired] What if the person that he called a faggot...was acting like a faggot? You don't have to be gay to act like a faggot. You don't even have to be a man to act like a faggot. Anybody can act like a faggot. Let me give you an example: I love Gwen Stefani. I think No Doubt is one of the best groups in the world; I keep a No Doubt CD in my car and I sing that shit to the end. I'm like "don't speak, I know just what you're sayin', oh, please stop explainin'"...I won't even get out my car 'til the shit's over. I'm like "you know you're good, you know you're real good...la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la, [high pitched] Don't! Don't!" I fuckin' love me some Gwen Stefani! Now, if I'm drivin' my car, and I'm at the light, and you in the car behind me, and the light's red, and I'm just sittin' there blasting some Gwen Stefani and I'm like "ain't no hollaback girl! Ain't no hollaback girl! Ain't no hollaback!" And you in the car behind me and the light's red--cool. But then the light turns green. And I don't see it, because I'm in Gwen Stefani heaven. And I'm just goin' "Ain't no hollaback girl! Ain't no hollaback girl! Ain't no hollaback!" Now the light starts fuckin' blinking! It's gettin' ready to turn red again, and I *still* don't see it, and I'm in my car going "This shit is bananas! B-na-na-na-nas! This shit is bananas! B-na-na-na-nas!" Now if you in the car behind me, and that light's gettin' ready to turn red, and I'm going "this shit is bananas! B-na-na-na-nas!" If you in the car behind me, you have the right to go "HEY, FAGGOT! The light's about to change!" Shit, even Elton John would call me a faggot at that moment. It's not the word, it's the context in which the word is bein' said!"

"Shit, last year the NAACP had a funeral for the word "nigger"! Well, tonight is Easter!"

"So the question is, can white people say "nigger"? And the answer's the same: "Not really." Oh there's some exceptions like, "Fuck me harder, nigger!" Lot of white women trying not to laugh in front of their husbands right now. "Honey I was in college! I had to see what it was about! He made me say it!""

"But the question remains the same: Can white people say "nigger"? And the answer's the same: not really. But wait a minute, there's one exception. There's one exception. There's one instance where white people can say nigger. And I'ma let it out tonight. I'ma let it out here in Johannesburg. The one time that white people can say nigger. White people are like "this is what I paid for! It's a fuckin' great night now!" The one time white people can say nigger: here it goes; listen closely. 'Cause I may never say this shit again. The one time white people can say nigger, OK: if it's Christmas Eve, and it's between 4:30 and 4:49 in the morning. If you white, and you're on your way to Toys 'R' Us to get your kid the last Transformer doll, and right before you walk into Toys 'R' Us, some black person runs up beside you, smacks you in the head with a brick, knocks you to the ground, stomps on your face--"take that, you cracker-ass motherfucker!" Riverdances on your head--"take that, you cracker-ass motherfucker!" Takes your money, pisses on you, and runs away--if you white, at that moment, you can say "Somebody stop that nigger!" Matter of fact, if you white and that happens to you, you can say nigger for a whole month! But you gotta walk around with the police report in your pocket. In case any black people catch you sayin' nigger, the police report will act as your freedom papers. "Hey, I heard you saying nigger; let me see your fuckin' papers. Gimme the papers; show me the papers!" [pretends to read a sheet] "Christmas Eve! 4:48! You just made it, motherfucker! Pissed on you! ...I hope they catch that nigger!""

"On Desperate Housewives: I think they should change the name of that show from Desperate Housewives...to Ungrateful Bitches! You all are hoes bitch!"

"I try never to brag but I'm probably the only person who has been on 60 Minutes twice and isn't dead."

"I love going to the Cellar and spanking the shit out of everybody. I love going there, at my age, and having an act that's better than the guys who are fifteen or twenty years younger than me. I'm like "This is my seventh special. What's your fucking excuse?""

"You learn more from fucking up than you do from success, unfortunately. And failure, if you don't let it defeat you, is what fuels your future success."

"Chris Rock is not only the best comedian in the world, he is WAY better than everyone else. Period."

"Comedian Chris Rock recently came out about being on the Autism spectrum; specifically, he was diagnosed with Nonverbal Learning Disorder. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he describes how clear-cut indicators (such as an inability to pick up on social cues and a tendency to take all statements hyperliterally) were ignored until his mid-fifties. Because he was an outgoing, Black comedian, Autism seemed unthinkable as an explanation for the social and emotional challenges he was facing. Rock says he downplayed his own mental health needs, too, because he'd internalized the idea only white people go to therapy."

"Chris Rock might be the only comedian I know who's maybe a little better at analogies than I am. He's a great analogizer."

"Well I failed to bring Roger to Flint. As we neared the end of the twentieth century, the rich were richer, the poor, poorer. And people everywhere now had a lot less lint, thanks to the lint rollers made in my hometown. It was truly the dawn of a new era."

"White people scare the crap out of me... I have never been attacked by a black person, never been evicted by a black person, never had my security deposit ripped off by a black landlord, never had a black landlord... never been pulled over by a black cop, never been sold a lemon by a black car salesman, never seen a black car salesman, never had a black person deny me a bank loan, never had a black person bury my movie, and I've never heard a black person say, "We're going to eliminate ten thousand jobs here — have a nice day!""

"Many families have been devastated tonight. This is just not right. They did not deserve to die. … If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him. Boston, New York, D.C., and the planes' destination of California — these were the places that voted AGAINST Bush."

"I can't even think about this movie. I don't WANT to think about it because if I think about it I will have to face an ugly truth that has been gnawing through my head... This started out as a documentary on gun violence in America, but the largest mass murder in our history was just committed — without the use of a single gun! Not a single bullet fired! No bomb was set off, no missile was fired, no weapon (i.e., a device that was solely and specifically manufactured to kill humans) was used. A boxcutter! — I can't stop thinking about this. A thousand gun control laws would not have prevented this massacre. What am I doing?"

"Librarians see themselves as the guardians of the First Amendment. … You got a thousand Mother Joneses at the barricades! I love the librarians, and I am grateful for them!"

"I'm a millionaire, I'm a multi-millionaire, I'm filthy rich. You know why I'm a multi-millionaire? 'Cause multi-millions like what I do. That's pretty good, isn't it? There's millions that believe in what I do. Pretty cool, huh?"

"If the small businesses suck they'll be driven out of business... If they got a good restaurant, people will go there and eat. You know in my town the small businesses that everyone wanted to protect? They were the people that supported all the right-wing groups. They were the Republicans in the town, they were in the Kiwanas, the Chamber of Commerce — people that kept the town all white. The small hardware salesman, the small clothing store salespersons, Jesse the Barber who signed his name three different times on three different petitions to recall me from the school board. Fuck all these small businesses — fuck 'em all! Bring in the chains. The small businesspeople are the rednecks that run the town and suppress the people. Fuck 'em all. That's how I feel."

"You know he's there illegally. You know he was not elected either by the popular vote or by the vote in Florida."

"We know all those facts about Florida and what Katherine Harris did, and the private firm that took African-Americans off the voting rolls and prohibited them from voting. But I've been surprised in this first week how many average Americans were not aware of all of the trickery and deceit that took place in the year before the election to fix it for George W. Bush."

"It was the morning of April 20, 1999, and it was pretty much like any other morning in America. The Farmer did his chores. The milkman made his deliveries. The President bombed another country whose name we couldn't pronounce. Out in Fargo, North Dakota, Cary McWilliams went on his morning walk. Back in Michigan, Mrs Hughes welcomed her students for another day of school. And out in a little town in Colorado, two boys went bowling at 6 in the morning. Yes, it was a typical day in the United States of America."

"You survive by having your fear compass calibrated correctly. Our compass is off now because we're being told to be afraid of everything. The things that we're frightened of, or told to be frightened of, are not necessarily the things that we need to fear."

"What the media are telling you to be afraid of are the wrong things... Fear is a necessary ingredient of our survival instincts."

"These bastards who run our country are a bunch of conniving, thieving, smug pricks who need to be brought down and removed and replaced with a whole new system that we control."

"Hey, here's a way to stop suicide bombings — give the Palestinians a bunch of missile-firing Apache helicopters and let them and the Israelis go at each other head to head. Four billion dollars a year to Israel — four billion dollars a year to the Palestinians — they can just blow each other up and leave the rest of us the hell alone."

"Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to — they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much."

"The majority of Americans — the ones who never elected you — are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction."

"I think the United States, I think our government knows where he is and I don't think we're going to be capturing him or killing him any time soon."

"Should such an ignorant people lead the world? How did it come to this in the first place? 82 percent of us don't even have a passport! Just a handful can speak a language other than English (and we don't even speak that very well.)"

"There's a gullible side to the American people. They can be easily misled. Religion is the best device used to mislead them."

"Maybe it's a sick fantasy of mine, but I am really looking forward to a debate between a general and a deserter. Plus, I really want to hear President Bush have to say, "Yes, General, No, General.""

"I'm going to do damage with it. I'll make sure that my work gets out. That no publisher will ever be able to tell me to take things out. Because I'll put it out myself. The more money I earn, the less they can stop me. Where I come from it's called fuck you money because I don't have to take an ounce of shit from anybody."

"I stopped reading the comics page a long time ago. It seems that whoever is in charge of what to put on that page is given an edict that states: “For God’s sake, try to be as bland as possible and by no means offend any one!” Thus, whenever something like Doonesbury would come along, it would be continually censored and, if lucky, eventually banished to the editorial pages. The message was clear: Keep it simple, keep it cute, and don’t be challenging, outrageous or political. And keep it white! It’s odd that considering all the black ink that goes into making the comics section (and color on Sundays) that you rarely see any black faces on that page. Well, maybe it’s not so odd after all, considering the makeup of most newsrooms in our country. It is even more stunning when you consider that in many of our large cities like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago where the white population is barely a third of the overall citizenry, the comics pages seem to be one of the last vestiges of the belief that white faces are just…well, you know…so much more happy and friendly and funny! Of course, the real funnies are on the front pages of most papers these days. That’s where you can see a lot of black faces. The media loves to cover black people on the front page. After all, when you live in a society that will lock up 30 percent of all black men at some time in their lives and send more of them to prison than to college, chances are a fair number of those black faces will end up in the newspaper. Oops, there I go playing the race card. You see, in America these days, we aren’t supposed to talk about race. We have been told to pretend that things have gotten better, that the old days of segregation and cross burnings are long gone, and that no one needs to talk about race again because, hey, we fixed that problem. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, the “whites only” signs are down, but they have just been replaced by invisible ones that, if you are black, you see hanging in front of the home loan department of the local bank, across the entrance of the ritzy suburban or on the doors of the U.S. Senate (100 percent Caucasian and going strong!)"

"They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet... in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks. We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing. National Geographic produced a survey which showed that 60 percent of 18-25 year olds don't know where Great Britain is on a map. And 92 percent of us don't own a passport."

"A lot of political people, especially people on the left, have forgotten the importance of humor as an incredible weapon, and a vehicle through which to affect change."

"I would like to apologize for referring to George W. Bush as a "deserter." What I meant to say is that George W. Bush is a deserter, an election thief, a drunk driver, a WMD liar, and a functional illiterate. And he poops his pants."

"Halliburton is not a "company" doing business in Iraq. It is a WAR PROFITEER, bilking millions from the pockets of average Americans. In past wars they would have been arrested — or worse. The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?"

"There is a lot of talk amongst Bush's opponents that we should turn this war over to the United Nations. Why should the other countries of this world, countries who tried to talk us out of this folly, now have to clean up our mess? I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe — just maybe — God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end."

"Stop this war! Shame on you Hobbits! Shame on you! This is a fictitious war! This Lord was not elected by the popular — [a computer-generated Oliphaunt steps on Moore, crushing him]."

"He is probably choking on a pretzel or something. I hope nobody tells him that I have won this award while he is eating a pretzel. … He has the funniest lines in the film. I am eternally grateful to him."

"I forgot out there on the stage to thank my cast. So if I could do that now, I want to thank Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. I thought the love scene between Cheney and Rumsfeld brought a tear to my eye."

"I don't agree with the copyright laws, and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people… as long as they're not doing it to make a profit off it as long as they're not, you know trying to make a profit off my labor — I would oppose that but you know I do quite well, and I don't know... I make these books and movies and TV shows because I want things to change, and so the more people who get to see them, the better. And so I'm…I'm happy I'm happy if that happens. Should I not be happy? I don't know, It's like if a friend of yours had the DVD of my movie — gave it to you to watch one night is that person doing something wrong? I'm not seeing any money from that, but he's just handing the DVD to you so that you can watch my movie, that he bought, and you're not buying it — and yet you're watching it without paying me any money you see, I think that's OK, I mean, that's always been okay right? — You share things with people and I think information, and art, and ideas should be shared."

"Our young people who go off to war and who join the service, we need to honor them because they're willing to risk their lives to protect us, to defend us, so we can have this way of life. And the agreement that they make with us is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. I think most Americans — I just saw the latest poll today — 54% now believe that invading Iraq wasn't the wisest thing to do — it wasn't certainly in self-defense. You weren't threatened; I wasn't being threatened, and that's the only time, because ultimately if it was your child…would you give up your child to secure Fallujah?"

"The motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started the war with Iraq in order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do business in other countries. They intend to use cheap labor in those countries, which will make Americans rich."

"I would not use either of those words to describe myself. I would say I'm an Eagle Scout and I'm overweight."

"Nothing would make me happier than to have you share it with everyone you know. All surveys have shown that, the more people who see it — especially those still sitting on the fence — the more likely we will have regime change."

"There is no terrorist threat. Yes, there have been horrific acts of terrorism and, yes, there will be acts of terrorism again. But that doesn't mean that there's some kind of massive terrorist threat."

"Fahrenheit 9/11: The temperature where freedom burns!"

"Controversy... What Controversy?"

"They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?"

"George Orwell once wrote: "And it's not a matter of whether the war is not real or if it is. Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.""

"For once we agreed."

"You've got the Bush Administration using that event in such a disrespectful and immoral way — using the deaths of those people to try and shred our civil liberties, change our Constitution, round people up. That's not how you honor them, by using them to change our way of life as a free country."

"I may be preaching to the choir, but the choir needs a good song."

"Clearly something has happened here that no one expected. And there aren't words to describe how any of us feel this morning on hearing this news."

"I want to thank all the right-wing organizations out there who tried to stop the film, either from their harassment campaign that didn't work on the theatre owners, or going to the FEC to get our ads removed from television, to all the things that have been said on television. It's only encouraged more people to go and see it. We are happy to announce that the efforts of the small-minded few have failed miserably."

"Early talk was that anti-Bush people would go see it and pro-Bush people would stay home, and that's not the case. Most people do not go around with labels. A lot of Republicans have open minds."

"Because it would be Un-American."

"Dear Mr. Bush: Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag. Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?"

"No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing — NOTHING — to do with this!"

"How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?"

"Now, I know this is a bitter pill to swallow. Iraq was going to be your great legacy. Now, it's just your legacy. It didn't have to end up this way. This week, when Republicans and conservative Democrats started jumping ship, you lashed out at them. You thought the most damning thing you could say to them was that they were "endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party." I mean, is that the best you can do to persuade them to stick with you — compare them to me? You gotta come up with a better villain. For heaven's sakes, you had a hundred-plus million other Americans who think the same way I do — and you could have picked on any one of them! But hey, why not cut out the name-calling and the smearing and just do the obvious thing: Come join the majority! Be one of us, your fellow Americans! Is it really that hard? Is there really any other choice? George, take a walk on the wild side!"

"We are the richest country in the world. We spend more on health care than any other country. Yet we have the worst health care in the Western world. Come on. We can do better than this."

"The film that's leaked onto the Internet is not taken at a movie theatre with a little home video camera, right? The way it's usually done? This is an inside job... Now, if you were a police detective, one of the first questions you'd ask is motive. Who has a vested interest in destroying the opening weekend's box office of this movie? If I were the police or the FBI investigating this felony that's taken place, that's where I would look. Having said that, I'm glad that people were able to see my movie. … I'm not a big believer in our copyright laws. I think they're way too restrictive. … I've never supported this concept of going after Napster. I think the rock bands who fought this were wrong. I think filmmakers are wrong about this. I think sharing's a good thing. … They said television would kill the movies, it didn't. They said VCRs would kill the movies, it didn't. Now they're saying this is going to kill the movies. It won't. People want to get out of the house and go to the movies! Nothing's ever going to kill that, and I really hope people will do that on opening weekend."

"Jesus told us that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us."

"The stories of the pharmaceutical companies and the health insurance companies is told. My film acts as a balance. I exist to provide balance, and I tell you, it isn't much balance. They're on every day, all day. My film is two hours. If for two hours during this entire year, people are exposed to the other side of the story, isn't that ok? It's amazing how they go after me. You asked me back there, 'You're biased. You have only one side.' Well, yeah, I have a bias. I have a bias on behalf of the little guy who doesn't have a say. I'm lucky enough to be able to have this bully pulpit, to be able to say the things I say, on behalf of the people who don't have a voice. The pharmaceutical companies and corporate America, they've got their voice. They own the networks and they can say whatever they want, all the time, and they do. So can we just have two hours for this side to have their say? I hope so, I think so. That's what I'm trying to do."

"The French, the British and the Canadian stuff that's in the films is through my American eyes, and I'm comparing it to America, and I'm not saying they don't have problems. But those aren't for me to fix. Trust me, from an American point of view, the Europeans look pretty good. You need to preserve what you have and fight to get back that which you lost."

"There are problems in all health-care systems, but at least [Europeans] have a health-care system that covers everyone, and it's not my position or my right or my responsibility to point out the flaws in [your] health-care system — that is your job — it is your job to fix those problems."

"I just decided to make a movie. I had no training, no film school, but I had been to a lot of movies."

"Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a participatory event. If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy. So Obama will rise or fall based not so much on what he does but on what we do to support him."

"My mum taught me how to read before I went to kindergarden, I always thought that being able to read provided lightness, help to dispel darkness, ignorance and stupidity."

"How about that McDonalds two blocks from Ground Zero? That's killed more people than the nineteen hijackers."

"Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined."

"Four hundred obscenely wealthy individuals, 400 little Mubaraks -- most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout of 2008 -- now have more cash, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined."

"Guns don't kill people – Americans kill people."

"Moore called the Affordable Care Act “awful” and added that, “Obamacare’s rocky start … is a result of one fatal flaw: The Affordable Care Act is a pro-insurance-industry plan implemented by a president who knew in his heart that a single-payer, Medicare-for-all model was the true way to go.” Nonetheless, Moore considered the plan a "godsend" since it provides a start "to get what we deserve: universal quality health care.”"

"Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, 'cause you'll be saying them for the next four years: "PRESIDENT TRUMP.""

"Yes, on November 8, you Joe Blow, Steve Blow, Bob Blow, Billy Blow, all the Blows get to go and blow up the whole goddamn system because it's your right. Trump's election is going to be the biggest "fuck you" ever recorded in human history and it will feel good — for a day. Maybe a week. Possibly a month. And then, like the Brits, who wanted to send a message, so they voted to leave Europe, only to find out that if you vote to leave Europe, you actually have to leave Europe. And now they regret it. All the Ohioans, Pennsylvanians, Michiganders, and Wisconsinites of Middle England, right, they all voted to leave and now they regret it. And over 4 million of them signed a petition to have a do-over, they want another election, but it's not going to happen. Because you used the ballot as an anger management tool. And now you're fucked. And the rest of Europe. They're like, "Bye Felicia!" So when the rightfully angry people of Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin find out after a few months in office that President Trump wasn't going to do a damn thing for them, it will be too late to do anything about it."

"I know a lot of people in Michigan that are planning to vote for Trump and they don't necessarily like him that much, and they don't necessarily agree with him. They're not racist or rednecks, they're actually pretty decent people…"

"“The next wave of fascists will not come with cattle cars and concentration camps, but they'll come with a smiley face and maybe a TV show ... That’s how the 21st-century fascists will essentially take over.”"

"From today’s news (8/12/2021): “The Census data collected from the 2020 Census was released today — and it revealed that the number of White people in the U.S. has fallen for first time since the first Census was taken in 1790.” In other words, best day ever in U.S. history."

"Michael Moore is a screwed asshole, that is what I think about that case. He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission."

"It's a free country, so he's free to say whatever he wants, but I don't appreciate it. I don't like it."

"To have to answer anything about what that slimeball says is just too much."

"John Kerry had intense supporters of his own. Hollywood filmmaker Michael Moore came out with a so-called documentary that was nothing more than campaign propaganda. In return, Kerry said that Hollywood entertainers conveyed "the heart and soul of our country.""

"I find it difficult to forgive George W. Bush a lot of things — mostly having to do with not telling the truth about important public matters, and then pretending it was no big deal that he had misled — and, come to think of it, that's pretty much my problem with Michael Moore, too … although one is a clown who makes movies and the other is, well, President of the United States. … we live in the age of the false dichotomy, an old propaganda trap (and logical fallacy) that says, for example: If you're not for the President's way of fighting terrorism (even if you'd like him to provide more information about what, exactly, that is), you are automatically assumed to be on the side of the terrorists; or, if you find fault with Michael Moore's methods, you must be on Bush's side. Of course, neither of these propositions is necessarily true. … You know how far the level of political discourse in American has fallen when people are asked to take the word of Dick Morris or Michael Moore at face value. So don't. And don't take my word for it. Do your own research."

"Post-war filmmakers gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary and Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary."

"Moore doesn't like health insurance companies: "They're the Halliburtons of the health industry. I mean, they really--they get away with murder. They charge whatever they want. There's no government control. And frankly, we will not really fix our system until we remove these private insurance companies. I mean, they literally have to be eliminated. They cannot be allowed to exist in this country"...Taking on the multibillion-dollar healthcare industry is all in a day's work for Michael Moore. After several million people see "SiCKO," the time just might be right for a prescription for change."

"I’m tired of being told how bad America is by leftwing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the religious freedom and women’s rights of Saudi Arabia, the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for Gay people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela. Won’t multiculturalism be beautiful?"

"Europeans think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they've taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities."

"Yet Moore is a silly and shady man who does not recognize courage of any sort even when he sees it because he cannot summon it in himself. To him, easy applause, in front of credulous audiences, is everything … If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture."

"This is not at all like watching the implosion of an obvious huckster and jerk like Michael Moore, who would have made a perfectly good Brownshirt populist."

"You know, the problem I have with Michael Moore is the problem I have with a lot of people who are fanatical and push really hard on things, which is not willing to say the other side is wrong. They have to be evil. And what I'm looking for is him to just say, maybe people are making mistakes. But it's always this conspiracy thing. There's always a conspiracy out to get him and a bunch of people doing things that are evil and psychotic and not simply wrong. And he's so cynical. He's so incredibly cynical."

"It was so sweet backstage, you should have seen it — The Teamsters were helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo."

"Sicko, which takes on America's profoundly profitable and catastrophically inefficient health care system, is Moore's most assured, least antagonistic and potentially most important film. Anecdotal in nature, Sicko shows what's wrong with our health care system by comparing it with those in Canada, England and France, where universal health care is as ingrained in the social fabric as their national anthems. Asked what would have happened in England if Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair had tried to dismantle the National Health Service, an elderly British statesman answers without pause, "There would have been a revolution.""

"Moore attempts to ignite an essential democratic impulse among American citizens. He assumes the role of a provocateur who raises the consciousness of his audiences and offers a polemical voice to the power elite. Whereas Moore's advocates recognize his output as an admirable practical realization of the free speech principle, his adversaries often perceive him as a menace to democratic procedures. Considering the nationwide dispute and the popularity of his movies around the world, the director should be acknowledged as a significant phenomenon on the American political scene at the dawn of the twenty-first century."

"Hasn't that been the norm with such crowd-getters as Fahrenheit 9/11 or Sicko by Michael Moore? They seem to only produce interesting memories, leaving mostly just footprints in the sand."

"When Michael Moore makes a movie these days, all hell seems to break loose. It gets to a point where whatever message he's trying to communicate is drowned out by all the media attention, knee-jerk reactionaries, and general resentment."

"Have you seen Fahrenheit 9/11? Watch it. Theres an interesting scene where Bush thinks and waits seven minutes before acting against 9/11. Don't pay attention to the fact it's biased or "propaganda", just see what's going on in the documentary and notice a man like Moore from a place like Flint has been researching and is trying to open our eyes."

"Moore is making a fortune out of his anti-Americanism. And I don't blame the guy for making a buck, but he's not serious."

"Little and hairy. But if [The New York Post] want to go with smart and stylish then hey, more power to them. Good luck."

"I've always run by the hierarchy of "If not funny, interesting. If not interesting, hot. If not hot, bizarre. If not bizarre, break something.""

"I signed up for what? I thought I was just ordering cable."

"The best-laid plans of mice and comedians usually wind up on the cutting-room floor."

"You wake up and you're still a little drunk and you can't believe that hot girl from last night actually has a beard and a penis."

"You just have to keep trying to do good work, and hope that it leads to more good work. I want to look back on my career and be proud of the work, and be proud that I tried everything. Yes, I want to look back and know that I was terrible at a variety of things."

"That whole thing has been overstated by environmentalists. First of all, what is it, rocks and snow? C'mon, what is that, you want that? Go to Canada my friend. Believe me, rocks and snow are overrated. I've seen otters—they look better covered in oil."

"I don't know what all the controversy is about, quite frankly. I've met Eminem, I met him backstage, and he's really gay."

"If you look on their lawn, there are... it looks like a tent city of reporters. I don't know what insight they think they're going to glean from these people's grief, but if there's ever a situation where someone who's just lost their daughter has anything to say other than "this sucks," I'd be happy to see a news crew on their lawn, but until then, why are these people there?"

"This show is our own personal beliefs."

"Howard Kurtz: CNN has is broadcasting your show internationally. Jon Stewart: I am not. Kurtz: Does that make you legitimate? Stewart: No, I am illegitimate. I am the bastard son of anything. We're not— we're fake."

"Kurtz: So you don't, you're not confusing yourself with a quote, "real journalist"? Stewart: No. You guys are— Kurtz: You're just making fun— Stewart: You guys are confusing yourselves with real journalists."

"If done for the right reasons, liberating a country from a despot, I don't see how that's immoral. Ah, done quickly, and then we all leave, yeah that's kind of... I mean, it's so much obviously more complicated than that. They're literally, if he doesn't allow inspections, we're bombing him — I'll allow inspections. If he doesn't allow them... on Tuesday — I'll allow them on Tuesday. If he doesn't serve fondue — alright, I'll serve fondue. I mean, they're gonna do anything, it's clear they cast their die, I mean, as hard as it is for Dick Cheney to get an erection, he's not gonna let this opportunity go by."

"Here is what I believe is the paradigm that would be effective and what I would love to see, and you're going to laugh because Fox News is my model. What Fox has done is they've got a guy, Roger Ailes, who's passionate and has created a model for a 24-hour news station that makes money based on a point of view... Using Fox's model, find someone with the passion and the huevos to just lay it on the line — not in a partisan way, not in the pursuit of political power and political gain, but in the pursuit of credibility. In the pursuit of being a judge, an arbiter, and earning the trust of the audience over time as an oversight to the shenanigans of the political world."

"If I was to really get at the burr in my saddle, it's not politics — and this is, I think, probably a horrible analogy — but I look at politicians as, they are doing what inherently they need to do to retain power. Their job is to consolidate power. When you go to the zoo and you see a monkey throwing poop, you go, "that's what monkeys do, what are you gonna do?" But what I wish the media would do more frequently is say "bad monkey.""

"It's a brilliant metaphor. What I meant to say was, when you see a monkey masturbating at the zoo..."

"[Robert Novak] apparently, they say, broke his hip. I think it's not the case. I believe his hip tried to escape."

"How did Memogate get a "gate"? How did Nipplegate get a "gate"? We invaded a country with the wrong information, and Janet Jackson's tit got a "gate". Who gives out the "gates"? Is there a "Gate"-gate? Is there a, a... I mean, it's absolute... We're living in insanity!"

"Everybody wrings their hands about Fox News. You know, "fair and balanced? Why, that's snide!" Yeah, okay, maybe they're not fair and balanced, but CNN used to have the slogan "You Can Depend on CNN". Guess what? I watch it, no you can't. So what's the difference?"

"Do you guys have to sell everything? I'd like to buy the Earth's core."

"The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom. That's all it is. All those media companies say, "We're going to make a killing here." You won't because it's still only as good as the content."

"The American people. For their just utter patience."

"Did you really just ask me if I want it to be bad? I have kids! What do you think? "Yeah, I don't want them to have any kind of a -- I want things to corrode to the point where we're all living in huts." [...] [I] "like things to go a little wrong" like birdshot to the face of a guy that would survive, not "like things to go wrong" till it's like Mad Max, every-man-for-himself-let's-all-ride-around-and-machine-guns, which seems to be the way that it's [going]."

"Are you insane?!"

"Everybody thought Barack Obama was going to [inspire people] when he came to Washington, but, you know, the Senate seems like the place where smart people go to die."

"Here's the way I look at it. President Bush has uranium-tipped bunker busters and I have puns. I think he'll be OK."

"We are not warriors in anyone's army. And that is not trying to be self-deprecating. I'm proud of what we do. I really like these two shows. I like making 'em. I like watching them. I'm really proud of them. But I understand their place. I don't view us as people who lead social movements."

"I have complete faith in the continued absurdity of whatever’s going on."

"The best part is that I'm able to come in, and whenever I want, choose an intern... oh, wait — Is this being recorded? No, the coolest part is the ability to have a silly thought about whatever is going on in your world at 10 o'clock in the morning, and be able to see it go out on the airwaves at 11 o'clock that night. That's an amazing privilege."

"The reason I don't worry about society is, nineteen people knocked down two buildings and killed thousands. Hundreds of people ran into those buildings to save them. I'll take those odds every fucking day."

"Fatherhood is great because you can ruin someone from scratch."

"That's the embarrassment. The embarrassment is that I'm given credibility in this world, because of the disappointment that the public has in what the news media does. Not because I have an ideological agenda."

"Comedian Jon Stewart says political commentators are “making a mistake” focusing on former President Donald Trump’s individual contributions to eroding democracy, arguing instead that America’s institutions are vulnerable to “the idea that power is its own reward.” “I don’t know if autocracy is purely the domain of Donald Trump,” the former "Daily Show" host said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Unfortunately, the messiness of democracy is often maybe one of its greatest weak points. People generally want prosperity and security." "If a democratic system is having difficulty providing that or if it's being subverted by those who want to create chaos so that they can make a more authoritarian government, that's part of it, too,” he added. “If we have identified the pressure points where the guardrails look most vulnerable, that's where we should be focusing so much of our efforts in terms of strengthening. … The encouraging thing is watching on a grassroots level, people that are really viewing it as something that they want to protect and that they want to strengthen,” Stewart said."

"“Again, he is not singing new songs. … He is maybe singing them better than [the late Sen. Barry] Goldwater," Stewart said. "But I think it's a mistake to focus it all on this one individual and not to focus it more on the idea that power is its own reward, whether it be in the financial industry or in government. Power doesn’t ever cede itself.” “We learned a lot of this in recent decades, but especially maybe the last four or five years because Donald Trump was so disruptive and so willing to challenge norms, we have learned that a lot of the American system is built on the honor system," Stewart said. "That only works, of course, if you care about or even have a sense of honor.”"

"The people who talk about anti-woke are the biggest fucking pussies you would ever find… I’m just so tired of it. The woke shit, you lose nothing. I’m a comedian — I’ve lost two words in 35 years. Honestly, are you that fucking unimaginative that you can’t figure it out?"

"Nazi Germany was so destructive to Judaism not only for the loss of life, but because many who survived began to see the practice of Judaism as somewhat of a health hazard."

"Orthodox Jews, or, as they are known in the Talmud, the Really Chosen Ones, are committed to the idea that the entire Torah was dictated by God verbatim to Moses at Mount Sinai ... Other forms of Judaism dispute this claim, although it does explain certain passages in the first Torah, such as, "I'm sorry, am I boring you?" and "What do you like better, Moses, Lord Almighty or Big Hoohah?""

"Reform Jews are the children of Conservative Jews, or as they are sometimes known, Christians with curlier hair."

"Hitler: (biting into a bagel) First of all, Larry, I don't know what I was so afraid of. These are delicious!!!"

"Hitler: Look, I was a bad guy. No question. I hate that Hitler. The yelling, the finger-pointing, I don't know... I was a very angry guy. King: And this... new Hitler? Hitler: I get up at seven, have half a melon, do the Jumble in the morning paper and then let the day take me where it will. Some days I'll fish, maybe hit the mall for an Orange Julius. The other day I spent seven hours in the park watching ants cart off part of a sandwich. Me!! The inventor of the Blitzkrieg... When you stop having to control everything, it's very freeing."

"Hitler: Denial is a powerful thing... I always thought I could stop any time I wanted. "If I could just get Czechoslovakia, that'll be the end of it. I'll be happy then." And then I'd get it and think, well geez, Poland's just up the road a piece and... you know the rest."

"Hitler: I'm not going to lie to you, it took a while. There were moments all along where I knew something was wrong. I remember one time... I think it was in Munich. We were having a rally. 100,000 people all chanting my name. The bonfires were going. The whole shebang. It should have been a crowning moment, but I clearly remember thinking, What am I doing here? I hate crowds."

"[mobster impression] Hey! Nice nominee you got there. [sniff, tightens tie] Be a shame if something happened to him, Mr. President. Know what I mean?"

"If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time. But I would really settle for less fucking tragedy."

"Maybe a more nuanced alert system could allow for more productive intervention beyond “You have ten seconds to disperse”. Or we can agree to keep ignoring the roots of how systemically, historically disenfranchised many African American communities still are, only paying attention to them when we fear their periodic, fiery ball of anger threatens to enter our airspace, and once again breathing a blissful sigh of forgetful relief when it’s another near miss."

"What blows my mind is the disparity of response between when we think people that are foreign are going to kill us and us killing ourselves. If this had been what we thought was Islamic terrorism, it would fit into our… We invaded two countries, and spent trillions of dollars and thousand of American lives and now fly unmanned death machines over, like, five or six different countries, all to keep Americans safe. We got to do whatever we can, we’ll torture people. We got to do whatever we can to keep Americans safe. Nine people, shot in a church, what about that? “Hey what are you gonna do? Crazy is crazy, right?” That’s the part that I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around."

"I heard someone on the news say, well, "tragedy has visited this church”. This wasn’t a tornado. This was a racist. This was a guy with a Rhodesia badge on his sweater. You know, I hate to even use this pun, but this one is black and white. There’s no nuance here. And we’re gonna keep pretending like “I don’t get it, what happened, there’s one guy who lost his mind”, but we are steeped in that culture in this country and we refuse to recognize it."

"The Confederate flag flies over South Carolina, and the roads are named for Confederate generals, and the white guy is the one who feels like his country is being taken away from him. We’re bringing it on ourselves. And that’s the thing, Al-Qaeda, all those guys, ISIS, they’re not shit compared to the damage that we can apparently do to ourselves on a regular basis."

"I've learned one thing over these last nine years, and I was glib at best and probably dismissive at worst about this -- the work of making this world resemble one that you would prefer to live in is a lunch pail fucking job, day in and day out, where thousands of committed, anonymous, smart, and dedicated people bang on closed doors and pick up those that are fallen and grind away on issues 'til they get a positive result, and even then, have to stay on to make sure that result holds. So the good news is, I'm not saying you don't have worry about who wins the election. I'm saying you have to worry about every day before it, and every day after it, forever."

"The election that we just had was a repudiation of the status quo: an overly-regulated system that is no longer responsive, or delivering, for the needs of The People... government is theoretically a constitutional system of checks and balances between equally powerful branches. But what government actually is, is an overly-complicated, byzantine, bureaucratic maze of rules, loopholes to those rules, and norms; complex enough that 🄐 if you want to find a rule that keeps you from doing something, you'll find it; and 🄑 if you actually want to do something, you can find a loophole to get around said rule. And then the norms are just how often you've had to pull any of this shit."

"My life [is] a series of Hollywood orgies and Kabbalah center brunches with the cast of Friends. At least that's what my handlers tell me. I’m actually too valuable to live my own life and spend most of my days in a vegetable crisper to remain fake news anchor fresh."

"We declared war on terror—it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui."

"Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may."

"Let's talk about the real world for a moment. We had been discussing it earlier, and I… I wanted to bring this up to you earlier about the real world, and this is I guess as good a time as any. I don’t really know to put this, so I’ll be blunt. We broke it. Please don’t be mad. I know we were supposed to bequeath to the next generation a world better than the one we were handed. So, sorry. I don’t know if you’ve been following the news lately, but it just kinda got away from us. Somewhere between the gold rush of easy internet profits and an arrogant sense of endless empire, we heard kind of a pinging noise, and uh, then the damn thing just died on us. So I apologize."

"I have not found this generation to be cynical or apathetic or selfish. They are as strong and as decent as any people that I have met. And I will say this, on my way down here I stopped at Bethesda Naval, and when you talk to the young kids that are there that have just been back from Iraq and Afghanistan, you don’t have the worry about the future that you hear from so many that are not a part of this generation but judging it from above."

"And the other thing… that I will say is, when I spoke earlier about the world being broke, I was somewhat being facetious, because every generation has their challenge. And things change rapidly, and life gets better in an instant."

"Dedication: To the huddled masses, keep yearnin'!"

"1300 BC: God gives Ten Commandments to Israelites, making them His Chosen People and granting them eternal protection under Divine Law. Nothing bad ever happens to Jews again."

"May 3, 325: Rome built."

"30 AD: Death penalty debate heats up after controversial execution of alleged "Son of God"."

"Through most of colonial history, inhabitants of the 13 colonies were loyal subjects of the British crown — resourceful, dedicated and as the Third Duchess of Kent... was fond of saying, "Some tea-drinkin' motherfuckahs." In fact, whenever the subject of the New World was mentioned, the Duchess could always be counted on for a wistful head-shake and a hearty "Motherfuckahs love that motherfuckin' tea.""

"But on what basis should the three branches of government be divided? It came down to two dueling ideas: Madison's proposal of an executive, judicial and legislative branch, and Georgia's Joseph Morton's proposal to dole out power according to, "The presence, forbearance, rectictude and largeosity of one's 'Plums and Carrot'." After much deliberation, it was decided Madison's proposal would be accepted, Morton only relenting after the Constitutional Convention agreed to proclaim him "impressive.""

"By far the most revolutionary aspect of this new position [of the presidency] would be who could hold it. The short answer: just about anyone. By placing no explicit race, gender, or religious requirements on the presidency, the Founders opened the door to a true meritocracy. Why no women, blacks, or non-Christians have answered the founders' challenge is a mystery, though most indications point to some inherent genetic flaw. (William Howard Taft came closest, having what most observers agreed were boobs.)"

"If the presidency is the head of the American body politic, Congress is its gastrointestinal tract. Its vast and convoluted inner workings may be mysterious and unpleasant, but in the end they excrete a great deal of material whose successful passage is crucial to our nation's survival."

"A free and independent press is essential to the health of a functioning democracy. It serves to inform the voting public on matters relevant to its well-being. Why they've stopped doing that is a mystery. I mean, 300 camera crews outside a courthouse to see what Kobe Bryant is wearing when the judge sets his hearing date, while false information used to send our country to war goes unchecked? What the fuck happened?"

"Jon Stewart: And I made a special effort to come on the show today, because I have privately, amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows, mentioned this show as being bad. Paul Begala: We have noticed. Stewart: And I wanted to—I felt that that wasn't fair, and I should come here and tell you that I don't—it's not so much that it's bad, as it's hurting America. Tucker Carlson: But in its defense— Stewart: But I wanted to come here today and say—here's just what I wanted to tell you guys. Carlson: Yes. Stewart: Stop. Stop, stop, stop. Stop hurting America."

"Stewart: You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably. Carlson: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think. Stewart: You need to go to one. [...] Carlson: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny. Stewart: No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey."

"Stewart: [To Tucker Carlson] How old are you? Carlson: Thirty-five. Stewart: And you wear a bow tie. ... So this is theater. ... Now, listen, I'm not suggesting that you're not a smart guy, because those are not easy to tie. ... But the thing is that this—you're doing theater, when you should be doing debate, which would be great. ... It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery."

"Carlson: You had John Kerry on your show, and you sniff his throne, and you're accusing us of partisan hackery? Stewart: Absolutely. Carlson: You've got to be kidding me. He comes on, and you— Stewart: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you?"

"We look at—the absurdity of the system provides us the most material. And that is best served by sort of the theater of it all, you know, which, by the way, thank you both, because it's been helpful."

"You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show."

"They said I wasn't being funny. And I said to them, "I know that, but tomorrow I will go back to being funny, and your show will still blow.""

"What you do for Jewish New Year is you go down to Times Square... It's a lot quieter than the regular New Year. It's just a few Jews walking around going, "'sup?""

"It upset me that, five days after the hurricane hit down in New Orleans, the President's plan was for a day of prayer. I would have thought a truck of food. A day of prayer. Now, maybe I'm mistaken here and, again, I'm not a scientific expert, but isn't a hurricane officially an act of God? Isn't a day of prayer kind of redundant? Hasn't God already made up his mind on that sort of thing? So we do a day of prayer. The President has his stupid day of prayer. Three days later, Hurricane Rita hits. Somebody must have said something... something like, "is that all you got?""

"Here's how bizarre the war is that we're in in Iraq, and we should have known this right from the get-go: When we first went into Iraq, Germany didn't want to go. Germany. The Michael Jordan of war took a pass."

"You can always tell when Bush is in trouble. He always brings out 9/11. 9/11 is the cudgel that he waves. As far as he's concerned, it's "Open Sesame". 9/11 is his way of saying, "Okay, I'm fucking up now, but remember four years ago? That was cool." I think he thinks he can use it for anything. "9/11. On 9/11 we were attacked. And so, I should get to bang your wife." What? "Now, there are some nay-sayers out there who think I shouldn't bang your wife, well, that's the cut-and-run crowd.""

"What is the fear of the "gay agenda" that has so upset people? Do people think that if gay people are given a place at the table, they'll be so convincing we'll all end up blowing them? What is the issue? "You know, I'm straight, but you've made such a convincing argument...""

"I do have some sad news to report. Björk couldn't be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her."

"Good evening everybody, ladies, gentlemen... Felicity."

"I really thought that the make-up artist for Cinderella Man should have won. I mean, it's so hard to make Russell Crowe look like he got in a fight."

"If there's anyone out there involved in illegal movie piracy... don't do it. Take a good look at these people. These are the people you're stealing from. Look at them! Face what you've done! There are women here who can barely afford enough gown to cover their breasts."

"Tonight is the night we celebrate excellence in film, with me, the fourth male lead from Death to Smoochy. Rent it."

"For those of you who are keeping score at home, I just want to make something very clear: Martin Scorsese, zero Oscars. Three 6 Mafia, one."

"[with Stephen Colbert, after presenting the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series to Ricky Gervais and being informed that Gervais was not there] Ricky Gervais couldn't be here tonight, so instead we're going to give this to our friend Steve Carell."

"As a comedian, as a person, as a citizen, as a mammal—in all of those areas, I am looking forward to the end of the Bush administration with every fiber of my being."

"I am sick of deconstructing their propaganda, because it's pretty much the same as it's always been. It's just repeating something over and over again until we believe it and we hope that you believe it."

"If someone was to introduce hope and idealism into our political system, I think the tension that would create in other areas would certainly be ripe. You would think that if you bring oxygen to the organism, the organism lives. But there may be other organisms in there that thrive in darkness and in a more anaerobic environment. Watching those creatures writhe will always be interesting."

"I think the metric by which television is considered liberal is literally based on the metric of liberalism in each person's soul. Peoples' senses of humor tend to go about as far as their ideology."

"I reject the idea there are just two sides. I think that with the amount of ideas and thoughts there are, it's not even going to be consistent with the same person. People can hold liberal and conservative dogma points at the same time. They're not living their lives via platforms. They're living their lives. The whole thing is an awfully tired construct."

"People would like to place a standard on our show that doesn't exist. We're not set up for reporting; we don't have an apparatus for that. We're discussing things that hopefully people might get something out of, but it's wildly inconsistent. Just because we hit on points that resonate, or people think are real complaints—that doesn't make us journalists."

"Stewart: The real issue is that TV news can either bring clarity or noise. And it tends to not seem to know the difference between them. … We do a show that doesn't try to bring noise. I think that we have a more consistent point of view than most news shows, I'll say that. Bulger: What's that point of view? Stewart: That theater doesn't make for authentic public discourse."

"If Obama's a tyrant, he's a pretty tame tyrant. How many tyrants do you know that really suffer because they can't get cloture?"

"[Fox News has] taken reasonable concerns about this president and this economy and turned it into a full-fledged panic about the next coming of Chairman Mao."

"I can't control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith. Or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies."

"The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything we hear nothing."

"There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and tea partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult — not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put forth the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish between terrorists and Muslims makes us less safe, not more."

"We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is — on the brink of catastrophe — torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!"

"Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats or Republicans or conservatives or liberals. Most Americans live their lives that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often it’s something they do not want to do, but they do it. Impossible things get done every day that are only made possible by the little, reasonable compromises."

"If you want to know why I’m here and what I want from you I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted. Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you."

"As I sit here today, I can't help but think what an incredible metaphor this room is for the entire process that getting health care and benefits for 9/11 first responders has come to. Behind me, a filled room of 9/11 first responders; and in front of me, a nearly empty Congress. … Your indifference cost these men and women their most valuable commodity -- time! It's the one thing they're running out of. This hearing should be flipped. These men and women should be up on that stage, and Congress should be down here, answering their questions as to why this is so damn hard and takes so damn long."

"The breathing problems started almost immediately. And they were told they weren't sick, they were crazy. And then, as the illnesses got worse and things became more apparent: "Well, okay, you're sick, but it's not from the pile." And then, when the science became irrefutable: "Okay, it's the pile, but this is a New York issue. I don't know if we have the money.""

"Why this bill isn't unanimous consent and a standalone issue is beyond my comprehension. And I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation for why. It will get stuck in some transportation bill or some appropriations bill and get sent over to the Senate, where a certain someone from the Senate will use it as a political football to get themselves maybe another new import tax on petroleum. Because that's what happened to us in 2015. And we won't allow it to happen again."

"They responded in five seconds. They did their jobs, with courage, grace... tenacity, humility... Eighteen years later? Do yours!"

"I'm used to the cowardice; I've been here a long time. Senate's where accountability goes to die. These people don't care! They're never losing their jobs, they're never losing their healthcare [...] I'm used to all of it, but I am not used to the cruelty."

"[The PACT Act] isn't a slush fund! You know what's a slush fund? The OCO -- the Overseas Contingency Operations Fund. 60 billion dollars, 70 billion dollars every year. On top of 500 billion dollars, 600 billion dollars, 700 billion dollars of a defense budget -- that's a slush fund. Unaccountable, no guardrails! Did Pat Toomey stand up and say "This is irresponsible! The guardrails!" No. Not one of 'em did. They vote for it year after year after year. You don't support the troops; you support the war machine! That's all you care about! [...] Boy, they haven't-- They haven't met a war they won't sign up for, and they haven't met a veteran they won't screw over! What the fuck are we?!"

"If this is "America First", then America is fucked."

"When corporations fail, you pay for it. But when they succeed, it's theirs. They socialize their losses and privatize their gains."

"Government picks winners and losers all the time."

"Yes, we've lost the war on guns. Personally, I knew it was over after Sandy Hook. We had a chance to pick guns or Kindergarteners and we went with guns."

"Fossil Fuels power our comfort and convenience. And the fact that they may also be the architect of our impending doom probably won't get us to change our ways. Truth is, we're not a "sacrifice for the greater good" kind of species. [...] We're not a "prevention" folk. We're an "angrily lash out at our lack of preparation in the middle of a preventable emergency" folk, while eating tacos stuffed inside of chalupas."

"For however sincerely we want to reckon and listen, the truth is America has always prioritized white comfort over black survival. Black people have had to fight so hard for equality that they've been irreparably set back in the pursuit of equity. And any real attempt to... uh, repa-- reparat-- repair. A ton. Of that damage. [whispering] Reparation. [normal voice] Sets off white people's "they're coming for our shit" alarm. Which we would know ourselves, had we actually been listening."

"Is a permanent underclass a necessity for American capitalism?"

"You think regular people get to surround themselves with a meat shield of henchmen to go to prison in their place?"

"This is a wonderful award, to see all my friends here and all the people I've worked with through the years, it reminds me of just how many people I carried."

"Black don't crack. But Jews... we age like avocados."

"You're not your circumstances, you're not what happens to you, you're what you make of it."

"If you like to do dumb shit -- which is something I like very much to do -- I cannot recommend more, creating a small child who also likes to do dumb shit. Because you can do the dumb shit and say "That's what he wanted!""

"I carry around, always, a quote by Twain, it-- It just so happens that I am never without it. And it's about ideas, and the quote is: "The radical invents the views. But when he has worn them out the conservative adopts them." And I keep that with me as a reminder that, even for Twain, they're not all fucking gems."

"What we do is an iterative business. It's a grind. It's work. The best amongst us just keeps at it."

"It's not the Woke Police that are gonna be an existential threat to comedy. It's not the Fresh Prince, it's the Crown Prince. It's not the fragility of audiences, it's the fragility of leaders."

"Comedy doesn't change the world, but it's a bell-weather. We're the banana peel in the coal mine. When a society is under threat, comedians are the ones who get sent away first. It's just a reminder that democracy is under threat. Authoritarians are the threat -- to comedy, to art, to music, to thought, to poetry, to progress, to all those things! It's never been-- All that shit, it's a red herring. It ain't the Pronoun Police, it's the Secret Police. It always has been, and it always will be. And this man's decapitated visage is a reminder to all of us that what we have is fragile and precious. And the way to guard against it isn't to change how audiences think, it's to change how leaders lead."

"The set is a news desk, and the nice-looking man behind it seems... um, troubled. About his life, perhaps? About the news? A touch of indigestion? It's hard to tell, but it becomes clear—and quickly—that he is funny. And smart. Jon Stewart presides over Comedy Central's The Daily Show, a blessed wedding of performer and format. Free of the burden of a full stand-up monologue, Stewart is able to put all his energy and wit into the news and guest spots. The word energy is almost too strong. Much of Stewart's humor seems to spring from an underlying terrain of world-weariness. [...] Repeat viewing of Stewart's shows reveals good things you missed the first time—smallish matters of voice shading, inflections and gestures begun but not completed. If you're a latecomer to his charms, you'll wish your alleged friends had demanded that you start watching a lot sooner. I'd like to see everything he has ever done."

"Stewart spent a couple of segments lecturing Paul Begala and me about how we were somehow “helping the politicians and the corporations,” a charge that baffled me then (I’ve never particularly liked either one), as it does now. Unlike most guests after an uncomfortable show, Stewart didn’t flee once it was over, but lingered backstage to press his point. With the cameras off, he dropped the sarcasm and the nastiness, but not the intensity. I can still picture him standing outside the makeup room, gesticulating as the rest of us tried to figure out what he was talking about. It was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. Finally, I had to leave to make a dinner. Stewart shook my hand with what seemed like friendly sincerity and continued to lecture our staff. An hour later, one of my producers called me, sounding desperate. Stewart was still there, and still talking."

"A goal of Colbert while working as a correspondent on "The Daily Show" — one of his "greatest joys" — was whether he could make Stewart laugh in the middle of a segment. [...] "I knew the piece was good if he couldn't look at me when we were at the desk together," Colbert recalls. "We did much (fewer) green screen segments then. The highlight was when we were covering the Democratic convention in 2004, and I did a piece on Obama being the son of a goat farmer and I said I was the son of an Appalachian turd miner. Jon couldn't look at me for the entire thing.""

"After coming back to the show, I was shocked at how much thought and distillation he personally puts into the script," [Stephen Colbert] says, "that care and unbelievable work ethic, and ability to consume information, digest and distill a story. He's telling us that this is the mechanics of the human interaction, and this is the actual message of the story." Colbert says Stewart's intelligence (the host can read books and script pages at lightning speed) can't be overstated, and that the show's mojo comes from stories Stewart brings to light that the traditional media fail to report. "He's naming what seems most ridiculous about the news, which is the personalities and the news itself," Colbert says. "It's only the overt game that's being reported."

"Now back to business as usual."

"Comedian Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, has been making waves with his nightly parody of the day's news. His straight-faced takeoffs of journalists and politicians often serve as biting indictments of official hypocrisy and media complicity."

"My boss is like, if you took Willy Wonka, and mixed him with Hitler. He's got like — he's crazy like Willie Wonka and he's psycho like Hitler. But he doesn't have a mustache."

"Has your boss ever poured scalding hot Celestial Seasonings Lemon Zinger on to your arm? It doesn't just burn, OK? It's also citrus, and the citrus stings. And then he filled the pockets of my jacket with cockroaches. I work for a child."

"Judging solely by the amount of media attention it got, you'd think The Daily Show, when the vaunted Jon Stewart was host, was the most-watched show of the 21st Century. You'd be wrong. It rarely made the top 100 rated shows of the week. Yes, you heard that right. The Daily Show, even with Jon Stewart as host, routinely garnered fewer viewers than reruns of Family Guy on the Cartoon Network. Yet when Stuart spoke, the media listened, even though the people didn't."

"I think part of the reason The Problem with Jon Stewart feels out of touch is because we've outgrown him; the people who grew up watching him are done walking up to symptoms and are ready to identify and call out things like capitalism and neoliberalism. We're living in the world Jon Stewart created, but I think that he's got some catching up to do if he wants to find a place in it for himself."

"Stephen Colbert says that for all of Jon Stewart's acumen when it comes to politics and comedic timing, "The Daily Show" host and managing editor has no problem going lowbrow. "He knows when to break the glass, if necessary," Colbert reasons."

"I love Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report."

"And that is your tragedy, Jon. [imitating Stewart and affecting falsetto] Look at me! I'm a sad clown! I hate you! I need you! I hate you! I need you! I don't want you, but I need constant attention and reinforcement from you laughter!"

"In November, America elected a black man president after two disastrous terms of George W. Bush. Race was transcended. People were so angry that they tossed aside centuries-old prejudices. [...] Last night, America witnessed a non-comedian hosting the Oscars after two calamitous stints by you, Jon Stewart: The George W. Bush of Comedy. Jon, you angered the world so much they were willing to completely redefine their concept of what an Oscars host should be. And like a phoenix from the ashes of the two massive turds you laid on that stage, rose Hugh Jackman."

"I think Stewart’s show demonstrated the decline and vacuity of contemporary comedy. I cannot stand that smug, snarky, superior tone. I hated the fact that young people were getting their news through that filter of sophomoric snark… I find nothing incisive in his work. As for his influence, if he helped produce the hackneyed polarisation of moral liberals versus evil conservatives, then he’s partly at fault for the political stalemate in the United States."

"We’re living in a media landscape that seems to get more infantile and politically simple-minded all the time—-look at the huge popularity of Glenn Beck…and I saw someplace recently that Jon Stewart is now the most trusted man in America. The clowns seem to be taking over the circus."

"Before Mr. Stewart, we didn’t expect much from nightly political humor. Late-night monologues were at best funny diversions, at worst toothless jabs pandering to the easiest stereotypes. ... The Daily Show didn’t just offer insightful, cutting analysis, clever parody and often hard-hitting interviews with major newsmakers. For an entire generation, it became the news, except this report could withstand the disruption of the Internet far better than the old media. If anything, the web only made The Daily Show, with its short segments, more essential. Every time a political scandal exploded or a candidate made headlines or a cable fight went viral, the first thought for many viewers was: I can’t wait to see what Jon Stewart will say about this."

"An actor's a guy, who if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening."

"That scene. Let me see. There were seven takes because Rod Steiger couldn't stop crying. He's one of those actors who loves to cry. We did it over and over again."

"Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite."

"When they laid down their arms, we murdered them. We lied to them. We cheated them out of their lands. We starved them into signing fraudulent agreements that we called treaties which we never kept. We turned them into beggars on a continent that gave life for as long as life can remember. And by any interpretation of history, however twisted, we did not do right. We were not lawful nor were we just in what we did. For them, we do not have to restore these people, we do not have to live up to some agreements, because it is given to us by virtue of our power to attack the rights of others, to take their property, to take their lives when they are trying to defend their land and liberty, and to make their virtues a crime and our own vices virtues."

"I think awards in this country at this time are inappropriate to be received or given until the condition of the American Indian is drastically altered. If we are not our brother's keeper, at least let us not be his executioner."

"Homosexuality is so much in fashion it no longer makes news. Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences and I am not ashamed. I have never paid much attention to what people think about me. But if there is someone who is convinced that Jack Nicholson and I are lovers, may they continue to do so. I find it amusing."

"Bertolucci is extraordinary in his ability to perceive, he's a poet...he is very easy to work for."

"Chaplin you got to go with. Chaplin is a man whose talents is such that you have to gamble. First off, comedy is his backyard. He's a genius, a cinematic genius. A comedic talent without peer."

"Kazan is a performer's director, the best director I ever worked with... Most actors don't get any help from directors. Emotional help, if you're playing an emotional part. Kazan is the only one I know who really gives you help."

"Bob Hope will go to the opening of a phone booth in a gas station in Anaheim, providing they have a camera there and three people. He'll go to the opening of a market to receive an award. He'd get an award from Thom McCan for wearing their shoes. It's pathetic. It's a bottomless pit. A barrel that has no floor. He must be a man who has an ever-crumbling estimation of himself. He's constantly filling himself up. He's like a junkie – an applause junkie. What happens to those people when they can't get up and do their shtick, God only knows. Bob Hope, Christ, instead of growing old gracefully or doing something with his money, be helpful, all he does is he has an anniversary with the President looking on. It's sad. He gets on an airplane every two minutes always going someplace. It didn't bother him at all to work the Vietnam War. Oh, he took that in his stride. He did his World War II and Korean War act. "Our boys" and all that. He’s a pathetic guy."

"You are very attractive, but the coat you're wearing makes me think you are either a very rich woman or a very rich man's mistress."

"Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life."

"The principal benefit acting has afforded me is the money to pay for my psychoanalysis."

"It is a simple fact that all of us use the techniques of acting to achieve whatever ends we seek."

"Acting serves as the quintessential social lubricant and a device for protecting our interests and gaining advantage in every aspect of life."

"I have always considered my life a private affair and the business of no one beyond my family and those I love. Except for moral and political issues that aroused in me a desire to speak out, I have done my utmost throughout my life, for the sake of my children and myself, to remain silent … But now, in my seventieth year, I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture."

"A lot of the old movie stars couldn't act their way out of a box of wet tissue paper, but they were successful because they had distinctive personalities. They were predictable brands of breakfast cereal: on Wednesdays we had Quaker Oats and Gary Cooper; on Fridays we had Wheaties and Clark Gable. They were off-the-shelf products you expected always to be the same, actors and actresses with likable personalities who played themselves more or less the same role the same way every time out."

"Even today I meet people who think of me automatically as a tough, insensitive, coarse guy named Stanley Kowalski. They can't help it, but, it is troubling."

"I was surprised as anyone when T-shirts, jeans and leather jackets suddenly became symbols of rebellion. In the film there was a scene in which somebody asked my character, Johnny, what I was rebelling against, and I answered 'Whaddya got?' But none of us involved in the picture ever imagined that it would instigate or encourage youthful rebellion."

"On the day Kazan showed me the completed picture I was so depressed by my performance that I got up and left the screening room."

"The power and influence of a movie star is curious: I didn't ask for it or take it; people gave it to me. Simply because you're a movie star, people empower you with special rights and privileges."

"I don't think I was constructed to be monogamous. I don't think it's the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed."

"There's a line in the picture where he snarls, "Nobody tells me what to do." That's exactly how I've felt all my life."

"Hollywood is run by Jews. It is owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity. They should have greater sensitivity about the issue of people who are suffering because they've [been] exploited. We have seen the nigger, we've seen the greaseball, we have seen the chink, the slit-eyed dangerous Jap. We have seen the wily Filipino. We've seen everything, but we never saw the kike, because they know perfectly well that is where you draw the wagons around."

"This picture will try to show the Nazism is a matter of mind, not geography, and that there are Nazis — and people of good will — in every country. The world can't spend its life looking over its shoulder and nursing hatreds. There would be no progress that way."

"Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts. Whenever we want something from somebody or when we want to hide something or pretend, we're acting. Most people do it all day long."

"If a studio offered to pay me as much to sweep the floor as it did to act, I'd sweep the floor. There isn't anything that pays you as well as acting while you decide what the hell you're going to do with yourself. Who cares about the applause? Do I need applause to feel good about myself?"

"The close-up says everything, it's then that an actor's learned, rehearsed behavior becomes most obvious to an audience and chips away, unconsciously, at its experience of reality. In a close-up, the audience is only inches away, and your face becomes the stage."

"I suppose the story of my life is a search for love, but more than that, I have been looking for a way to repair myself from the damages I suffered early on and to define my obligation, if I had any, to myself and my species."

"When I lie on the beach there naked, which I do sometimes, and I feel the wind coming over me and I see the stars up above and I am looking into this very deep, indescribable night, it is something that escapes my vocabulary to describe. Then I think: 'God, I have no importance. Whatever I do or don't do, or what anybody does, is not more important than the grains of sand that I am lying on, or the coconut that I am using for my pillow.' So I really don't think in the long sense."

"Conviction of the myth is everything. We need myths, we live by myths, we die for myths."

"Pallid as a mushroom, smooth-skinned and scarred, with curved feminine lips and silky hair, he seems as unhealthy as a lame duck. Yet his ram-like profile has the harsh strength of the gutter."

"This fear of the single man is seen most viscerally in Hollywood films, with their images of dangerous, potentially violent men. The most famous of these were stars such as James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, and Anthony Perkins, each embodying a different type of moody, sensitive rebel."

"The movie may not contain Brando's greatest performance, but it certainly contains his most emotionally overwhelming scene... As he weeps, as he attempts to remove her cosmetic death mask ("Look at you! You're a monument to your mother! You never wore makeup, never wore false eyelashes!"), he makes it absolutely clear why he is the best film actor of all time. He may be a bore, he may be a creep, he may act childish about the Academy Awards -- but there is no one else who could have played that scene flat-out, no holds barred, the way he did, and make it work triumphantly."

"People like Brando are just kindergarten compared to Kinski."

"Simply put, in film acting, there is before Brando, and there is after Brando. And they are like different worlds."

"Mr. Brando can chew on a matchstick with more skill than many actors can summon up to create a whole character, and simply watching him work is a lesson in the art of acting."

"Talking about Marlon is like dancing about architecture. When you tell the stories, the stories would be rich. And everybody would laugh a lot. And then say "where does it come from?""

"I like Brando's acting … and James Dean … and Richard Widmark. Quite a few of 'em I like."

"No figure of his influence has so precariously balanced a handful of unforgettable achievements against a brimming barrelful of embarrassments. And yet the reverence in which he is held by his profession is unshakable. His sometime friend and co-star Jack Nicholson said it simply and best: "He gave us our freedom." By which he meant that Brando's example permitted actors to go beyond characterizations that were merely well made, beautifully spoken and seemly in demeanor; allowed them to play not just a script's polished text but its rough, conflicting subtext as well."

"I realized there was a part of him always churning with something, some problem he was dealing with. I got the impression of a man who was trying to solve the pain of something – perhaps he was gifted with or burdened with – that he didn't really want, or he didn't want so long as he didn't understand it. It kept him, whether he liked it or not, continually alert, seeking for a solution and continually alive, and connected with all of us who have things inside of us going on all the time, and we became fascinated, unconsciously, and watched his turmoil. And that's the word. Turmoil. It was a continuing deep and personal problem."

"Brando used to go cha-cha dancing with us. He could dance his ass off. He was the most charming motherfucker you ever met. He’d fuck anything. Anything! He’d fuck a mailbox. James Baldwin. Richard Pryor. Marvin Gaye. [He slept with them? How do you know that?] Come on, man. He did not give a fuck!"

"I want everybody really lost, and I want us all to be at home there. Something like that. Actually I am not interested in that, but I mean that's what you could do. Lots of people would like it. I have to say finally what I am interested in, like Socrates: peace... rest... nothing."

"The Angel was in the earth, and she led me to fix my eyes in Heaven. - And the remnants of the world were renewed by children and it was called Paradise."

"Reality is nothing but a collective hunch."

"Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it...."

"Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs."

"When you're dancing the mystical dance of the molecules, you're not the one who's leading."

"It's my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain."

"All my life, I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific."

"If I had known what it would be like to have it all... I might have been willing to settle for less."

"Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination."

"No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up."

"I bet the worst part about dying is the part where your whole life passes before you."

"Your problem is your role models were models."

"I swear people don't want sex so much as they want somebody who'll listen to 'em … the first thing you learn after fellatio is how to listen."

"Remember we're all in this alone."

"Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed."

"For fast acting relief, try slowing down."

"If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?"

"If the formula for water is H2O, is the formula for an ice cube H2O squared?"

"If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?"

"If you read a lot of books, you're considered well-read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you're not considered well-viewed."

"Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world."

"The best mind-altering drug is truth."

"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."

"Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying — but when God talks to us, we're said to be schizophrenic?"

"Interviewer: You once said you had a drug problem... Lily: Yeah, I still do. It's so hard to find good grass these days."

"Well, whoever Keyser Söze is, I can tell you he is going to get gloriously drunk tonight."

"Dianne, thank you for teaching me about caring about the right things, and I love you."

"Sometimes the person who is the most logical is the person whom we call insane."

"John Lennon was many things to many people. A poet, a rocker, a leader, a troublemaker, a father, a husband — a man. Growing up, to me, he was a hero. The work of John Lennon was marked by its exquisite beauty and by its brutal honesty. So in that vein, let me say, that while I'm both deeply honored to be here — I'm also incredibly pissed-off. I'm outraged because this passionate prophet of peace, and so many others, are not with us here — because we live in an all-too-violent world. And so in the spirit of this occasion it is up to all of us, to do what we can, not only to keep John's songs alive, but help rebuild New York — and that includes your host..."

"The thing that is always so surprising about plays written in another century is how remarkably elastic they are. When you listen to the way in which Shakespeare attacks relationships, for example, even though the words may start off sounding foreign, in actuality they are so accessible, the motivations so clear, the resonances so contemporary. When you put it in a modern context - we could well be in a place with someone like Gaddafi or Mubarak - it becomes apparent how Richard III resonates with that type of personality, with media and manipulation, alliances and petty jealousies."

"I have a lot of respect and admiration for Anthony Rapp as an actor. I'm beyond horrified to hear his story. I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been 30 years ago. But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years. This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life. I know that there are stories about me and that some have been fueled by the fact that I have been so protective of my privacy. As those closest to me know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behavior."

"I mean, my mother knows. Or thinks she knows. Or supposes. Or suspects. I told her I was writing a story on Kevin Spacey, and she said, “Well, I hear he’s gay.” Now, you must understand some things about my mom. She is eighty years old and lives in a condominium in Florida. Although she loves movies—especially dark and intricate mysteries, which she calls “murders,” as in “You know how I like a good murder”—she has no connection to the movie business and has never, to my knowledge, outed anyone before. “Ma, where did you hear that?” “At the pool.” Of course—the pool. It is shocking what kind of knowledge is forced upon our parents—what kind of innocence is lost—at the pools of America. It is shocking, indeed, to imagine how many of America’s pools had to learn Kevin Spacey’s supposed secret before the supposed secret reached my mother’s pool and the grasp of her saintly and intrepid ears. One imagines the information—if information is what it is—creeping across the nation, from Hollywood to Florida, pool by pool, sort of like the dogged swimmer of Cheever’s short story, until at last an entire nation of moviegoers comes to hold Kevin Spacey under suspicion, until at last our own suspicion is all we know of him, all we have of him, all that’s left of him. It was not as surprising, though, to hear my mother repeat a rumor she’d heard about Kevin Spacey as it was to hear ostensible sophisticates in New York and Los Angeles repeat the very same rumor, as though my mother, on this count, were truly in the know; as though we have become unanimous in what we’ve heard, homogenized even to the extent of our access to secrets; as though the only thing one could possibly say about Kevin Spacey is what everyone else has already said, which is that he is supposed to be very smart, that he is supposed to be very private, that he is supposed to be extraordinarily committed to the protection and development of his extraordinary gifts as an actor, and that he is supposed to be gay. And that is all he’s supposed to be, by advance billing; that is it. He is one of our culture’s usual suspects, and, like the character he played in the movie of that name, he is both narrowed by our suspicions and set free by them, sprung by them, for he is an actor, and when all we know of an actor is that we don’t quite trust him, don’t quite believe him, then he is free to become whatever he wants to become, which, in the case of Kevin Spacey, is a movie star."

"Off-Off-Broadway is absolutely necessary. It doesn't have to be sanctioned by the state, subsidized or anything. The plank and the passion is what it's about."

"You need friends, especially in the theatre, you need friends. You need people to interchange with, interface with, connect with. Together you’re going to make it, you’re going to do it together, you’re going to put it on, whatever it is."

"The greatest theatre that I experienced in my life was The Living Theatre and they were Off-Off-Broadway. And that was in the fifties."

"[Insomnia]’s a film that I look back on with great fondness. Working with Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank was an incredible experience. Sometimes, when people look for connections in your work, they look more at things like budget level than at the filmmaking itself. If you compare it to Oppenheimer, for example, there’s a similar attempt to try and convey the subjective experience of the protagonist. In the case of Pacino’s character, he’s suffering from a distortion of perception due to lack of sleep, and it’s not a million miles away from what I’m trying to do with showing Oppenheimer’s internal process, particularly at the beginning of the film."

"Nowadays you don't go around on the street kicking people, punching people — because if you do (makes gun shape with hand), well that's it — I don't care how good you are."

"When I look around I always learn something, and that is to be yourself always, express yourself, and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate him. Now that seems to be the prevalent thing happening in Hong Kong, like they always copy mannerism, but they never start from the root of his being and that is, how can I be me?"

"You know what I want to think of myself? As a human being. Because, I mean I don't want to be like "As Confucius say," but under the sky, under the heavens there is but one family. It just so happens man that people are different."

"When you're talking about fighting, as it is, with no rules, well then, baby you'd better train every part of your body!"

"All types of knowledge, ultimately mean self knowledge."

"When I look around, I always learn something: to be always yourself, and to express yourself, to have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it."

"Boards don't hit back."

"A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. When the opponent expands, I contract; and when he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, "I" do not hit, "it" hits all by itself."

"Don't think, feel....it is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory!"

"Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system."

"Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it."

"Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life. Do not be concerned with escaping safely — lay your life before him."

"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level."

"Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

"For a moment The surrounding utters no sound. Time ceases. The Paradise of Dreams come true."

"Jeet Kune Do favors formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since Jeet Kune Do has no style, it can fit in with all styles. As a result, Jeet Kune Do utilizes all ways and is bound by none and, likewise, uses any techniques which serve its end."

"When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning, there is simplicity. The classical man is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition. If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow — you are not understanding yourself."

"Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there."

"Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing. Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception. To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. Awareness has no frontier; it is giving of your whole being, without exclusion."

"To contemplate a thing implies maintaining oneself OUTSIDE it, resolved to keep a distance between it and ourselves."

"Running water never grows stale. So you just have to 'keep on flowing.'"

"If one loves, one need not have an ideology of love."

"The happiness that is derived from excitement is like a brilliant fire — soon it will go out. Before we married, we never had the chance to go out to nightclubs. We only spent our nights watching TV and chatting. Many young couples live a very exciting life when they are in love. So, when they marry, and their lives are reduced to calmness and dullness, they will feel impatient and will drink the bitter cup of a sad marriage."

"Of course you’re there. Death is always there. So why was I afraid? Your leap is swift. Your claws are sharp and merciful. What can you take from me which is not already yours? . . . Everything I have done until now has been fruitless. It has led to nothing. There was no other path except that it led to nothing — and before me now there is only one real fact — Death. The truth I have been seeking — this truth is Death. Yet Death is also a seeker. Forever seeking me. So — we have met at last. And I am prepared. I am at peace. Because I will conquer death with death."

"Neither. I think of myself as a human being."

"The Three Stages of Cultivation — The first is the primitive stage. It is a stage of original ignorance in which a person knows nothing about the art of combat. In a fight, he simply blocks and strikes instinctively without a concern for what is right and wrong. Of course, he may not be so-called scientific, but, nevertheless, being himself, his attacks or defenses are fluid. The second stage — the stage of sophistication, or mechanical stage — begins when a person starts his training. He is taught the different ways of blocking, striking, kicking, standing, breathing, and thinking — unquestionably, he has gained the scientific knowledge of combat, but unfortunately his original self and sense of freedom are lost, and his action no longer flows by itself. His mind tends to freeze at different movements for calculations and analysis, and even worse, he might be called “intellectually bound” and maintain himself outside of the actual reality. The third stage — the stage of artlessness, or spontaneous stage — occurs when, after years of serious and hard practice, the student realizes that after all, gung fu is nothing special. And instead of trying to impose on his mind, he adjusts himself to his opponent like water pressing on an earthen wall. It flows through the slightest crack. There is nothing to try to do but try to be purposeless and formless, like water. All of his classical techniques and standard styles are minimized, if not wiped out, and nothingness prevails. He is no longer confined."

"Using no way as way; Having no limitation as limitation."

"In Jeet Kune Do, it’s not how much you have learned, but how much you have absorbed from what you have learned. It is not how much fixed knowledge you can accumulate, but what you can apply livingly that counts. ‘Being’ is more valued than "doing"."

"You have to keep your reflexes so that when you want it — it’s there. When you want to move — you are moving. And when you move, you are determined to move! Not accepting even one inch less than 100 percent of your honest feelings. Not anything less than that. So that is the type of thing you have to train yourself into. To become one with your feelings so that, when you think — it is."

"In life, what more can you ask for than to be real? To fulfill one’s potential instead of wasting energy on [attempting to] actualize one’s dissipating image, which is not real and an expenditure of one’s vital energy. We have great work ahead of us, and it needs devotion and much, much energy. To grow, to discover, we need involvement, which is something I experience every day — sometimes good, sometimes frustrating. No matter what, you must let your inner light guide you out of the darkness."

"None whatsoever."

"To be perfectly frank, I really do not."

"I believe in sleeping."

"There is no such thing as maturity. There is instead an ever-evolving process of maturing. Because when there is a maturity, there is a conclusion and a cessation. That’s the end. That’s when the coffin is closed. You might be deteriorating physically in the long process of aging, but your personal process of daily discovery is ongoing. You continue to learn more and more about yourself every day."

"I have come to discover through earnest personal experience and dedicated learning that ultimately the greatest help is self-help; that there is no other help but self-help— doing one’s best, dedicating one’s self wholeheartedly to a given task, which happens to have no end but is an ongoing process. I have done a lot during these years of my process. A swell in my process, I have changed from self-image actualization to self-actualization, from blindly following propaganda, organized truths, etc. to searching internally for the cause of my ignorance."

"Whether or not we can get together, remember well that art “lives” where absolute freedom is. With all the training thrown to nowhere, with a mind (if there is such a verbal substance) perfectly unaware of its own working, with the “self” vanishing nowhere, the art of JKD attains its perfection."

"You must have complete determination. The worst opponent you can come across is one whose aim has become an obsession. For instance, if a man has decided that he is going to bite off your nose no matter what happens to him in the process, the chances are he will succeed in doing it. He may be severely beaten up, too, but that will not stop him from carrying out his objective. That is the real fighter."

"Jeet Kune Do rejects all restrictions imposed by form and formality and emphasizes the clever use of the mind and body to defend and attack."

"An instructor should exemplify the things he seeks to teach. It will be of great advantage if you yourself can do all you ask of your students and more."

"As an instructor, you must be able to distinguish between poor performance caused by lack of ability or aptitude on the part of the student and poor performance caused by lack of effort. You should treat the first with patience and the latter with firmness. You must never apply sarcasm and ridicule."

"Even today, I dare not say that I have reached a state of achievement. I'm still learning, for learning is boundless."

"The man who is really serious, with the urge to find out what truth is, has no style at all. He lives only in what is."

"Take inventory of everyone with whom you have contact."

"Faith is a state of mind that can be conditioned through self-discipline. Faith will accomplish."

"Faith makes it possible to achieve that which man's mind can conceive and believe."

"Possession of anything begins in the mind."

"Thoughts are things."

"Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal."

"The intangible represents the real power of the universe. It is the seed of the tangible."

"The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits."

"I'm in the midst of preparing my next movie, Enter the Dragon a coproduction between Concord and Warner Bros., plus another Concord production, The Game of Death, which is only halfway done"

"Emptiness the starting point. — In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup. My friend, drop all your preconceived and fixed ideas and be neutral. Do you know why this cup is useful? Because it is empty."

"Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier."

"Life lives; and in the living flow, no questions are raised. The reason is that life is a living now! So, in order to live life whole-heartedly, the answer is life simply is."

"The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a pattern of systems."

"The aphorism "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he" contains the secret of life."

"Meaning is found in relationship. — Meaning is the relationship of the foreground figure to the background."

"Life is never stagnation. It is constant movement, unrhythmic movement, as we as constant change. Things live by moving and gain strength as they go."

"Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning."

"The primary reality is not what I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think."

"The timeless moment. — The "moment" has no yesterday or tomorrow. It is not the result of thought and therefore has no time."

"Knowledge, surely, is always of time, whereas knowing is not of time. Knowledge is from a source, from accumulation, from conclusion, while knowing is a movement."

"To realize freedom the mind has to learn to look at life, which is a vast movement, without the bondage of time, for freedom lies beyond the field of consciousness — care for watching, but don't stop and interpret "I am free," then you're living in a memory of something that has gone before."

"To spend time is to pass it in a specified manner. To waste time is to expend it thoughtlessly or carelessly. We all have time to spend or waste, and it is our decision what to do with it. But once passed, it is gone forever."

"Time means a lot to me because, you see, I, too, am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing and simplifying. If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of."

"Be aware of doing your best to understand the ROOT in life, and realize the DIRECT and the INDIRECT are in fact a complementary WHOLE. It is to see things as they are and not to become attached to anything — to be unconscious meant to be innocent of the working of a relative (empirical) mind — where there is no abiding of thought anywhere on anything — this is being unbound. This not abiding anywhere is the root of our life."

"Concentration is the ROOT of all the higher abilities in man."

"Seek to understand the root. — It is futile to argue as to which single leaf, which design of branch, or which attractive flower you like; when you understand the root, you understand all its blossoming."

"What we are after is the ROOT and not the branches. The root is the real knowledge; the branches are surface knowledge. Real knowledge breeds "body feel" and personal expression; surface knowledge breeds mechanical conditioning and imposing limitation and squelches creativity."

"Flow in the living moment. — We are always in a process of becoming and NOTHING is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you'll be flexible to change with the ever changing. OPEN yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the TOTAL OPENNESS OF THE LIVING MOMENT. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo."

"You cannot force the Now. — But can you neither condemn nor justify and yet be extraordinarily alive as you walk on? You can never invite the wind, but you must leave the window open."

"The Moment is freedom. — I couldn't live by a rigid schedule. I try to live freely from moment to moment, letting things happen and adjusting to them."

"The Now is indivisible. — Completeness, the now, is an absence of the conscious mind to strive to divide that which is indivisible. For once the completeness of things is taken apart it is no longer complete."

"The Western approach to reality is mostly through theory, and theory begins by denying reality — to talk about reality, to go around reality, to catch anything that attracts our sense-intellect and abstract it away from reality itself. Thus philosophy begins by saying that the outside world is not a basic fact, that its existence can be doubted and that every proposition in which the reality of the outside world is affirmed is not an evident proposition but one that needs to be divided, dissected and analyzed. It is to stand consciously aside and try to square a circle."

"In Science we have finally come back to the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, who said everything is flow, flux, process. There are no "things." NOTHINGNESS in Eastern language is "no-thingness". We in the West think of nothingness as a void, an emptiness, an nonexistence. In Eastern philosophy and modern physical science, nothingness — no-thingness — is a form of process, ever moving."

"What IS is more important than WHAT SHOULD BE. To many people are looking at "what is" from a position of thinking "what should be.""

"Conditioning obstructs our view of reality. — We do not see IT in its suchness because of our indoctrination, crooked and twisted."

"True thusness is without defiling thought; it cannot be known through conception and thought."

"Reality is apparent when one ceases to compare. — There is "what is" only when there is no comparison at all, and to live with what is, is to be peaceful."

"Reality is being itself. — It is being itself, in becoming itself. Reality in its isness, the "isness" of a thing. Thus isness is the meaning — having freedom in its primary sense — not limited by attachments, confinements, partialization, complexities."

"A self-willed man obeys a different law, the one law I, too, hold absolutely sacred — the human law in himself, his own individual will."

"One should be in harmony with, not in opposition to, the strength and force of the opposition. This means that one should do nothing that is not natural or spontaneous; the important thing is not to strain in any way."

"The dualistic philosophy reigned supreme in Europe, dominating the development of Western science. But with the advent of atomic physics, findings based on demonstrable experiment were seen to negate the dualistic theory, and the trend of thought since then has been back to the monistic conception of the ancient Taoists."

"If thought exists, I who think and the world about which I think also exist; the one exists but for the other, having no possible separation between them. Therefore, the world and I are both in active correlation; I am that which sees the world, and the world is that which is seen by me. I exist for the world and the world exists for me. … One sure and primary and fundamental fact is the joint existence of a subject and of its world. The one does not exist without the other. I acquire no understanding of myself except as I take account of objects, of the surroundings. I do not think unless I think of things — and there I find myself."

"When we hold to the core, the opposite sides are the same if they are seen from the center of the moving circle. I do not experience; I am experience. I am not the subject of experience; I am that experience. I am awareness. Nothing else can be I or can exist."

"Taoist philosophy … is essentially monistic. … Matter and energy, Yang and Yin, heaven and earth, are conceived of as essentially one or as two coexistent poles of one indivisible whole."

"Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that. The void is all-inclusive; having no opposite, there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. The all illuminating light shines and is beyond the movement of the opposites."

"Like everyone else you want to learn the way to win. But never to accept the way to lose. To accept defeat — to learn to die — is to be liberated from it. Once you accept, you are free to flow and to harmonize. Fluidity is the way to an empty mind. You must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying."

"True thusness is the substance of thought, and thought is the function of true thusness. There is no thought except that of true thusness. Thusness does not move, but its motion and function are inexhaustible."

"Liberate yourself from concepts and see the truth with your own eyes. — It exists HERE and NOW; it requires only one thing to see it: openness, freedom — the freedom to be open and not tethered by any ideas, concepts, etc. … When our mind is tranquil, there will be an occasional pause to its feverish activities, there will be a let-go, and it is only then in the interval between two thoughts that a flash of UNDERSTANDING — understanding, which is not thought — can take place."

"Balance your thoughts with action. — If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done."

"Concepts vs. self-actualization. — Instead of dedicating your life to actualize a concept of what you should be like, ACTUALIZE YOURSELF. The process of maturing does not mean to become a captive of conceptualization. It is to come to the realization of what lies in our innermost selves."

"Life is better lived than conceptualized. — This writing can be less demanding should I allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I've come to understand that life is best to be lived — not to be conceptualized. If you have to think, you still do not understand."

"Knowledge will give you power, but character respect."

"What you HABITUALLY THINK largely determines what you will ultimately become."

"Know the difference between a catastrophe and an inconvenience. — To realize that it's just an inconvenience, that it is not a catastrophe, but just an unpleasantness, is part of coming into your own, part of waking up."

"The change is from inner to outer. — We start by dissolving our attitude not by altering outer conditions."

"Choose the positive. — You have choice — you are master of your attitude — choose the POSITIVE, the CONSTRUCTIVE. Optimism is a faith that leads to success."

"Cease negative mental chattering. — If you think a thing is impossible, you'll make it impossible. Pessimism blunts the tools you need to succeed."

"A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at."

"Don't fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail."

"Research your own experience; absorb what is useful, reject what is useless and add what is essentially your own."

"When asked what the difference between a karate punch and a kung-fu punch was during his first U.S. screen test in 1965, Bruce Lee replied, “Well, a karate punch is like being hit by an iron bar—whack! A kung-fu punch is like being hit by an iron ball swung on an iron chain with an iron ball attached to the end—it goes WHANG!—and it hurts inside.” Then he stood up and showed exactly what that might look like in a flurry of hands and feet moving so fast they blurred."

"Bruce Lee was grateful to those who helped his career. When The Green Hornet was cancelled, he wrote to producer William Dozier to say, "I like to take this opportunity to thank you personally for all that you've done to start my career in show business. Without you, I would never have thought about being in Hollywood. I've gained tremendous experience from the Green Hornet and believe I've improved steadily since the first show----that of minimizing and hacking away the unessential.""

"The perfect way is only difficult for those who pick and choose. Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart; if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease."

"When I was having dinner with Chuck Norris I did ask him: "If you and Bruce would be in a real fight to death, who would win?", and he said without thinking: "Bruce of course. Nobody can beat him.""

"Bruce Lee lived martial arts every day! He could do things in the martial arts that others could not. He was very friendly and outgoing and usually the center of attention. We met after the national championships in 1964 during a dinner. Because I had just won the championship, he immediately challenged me. He said, "I want to challenge you to an arm wrestling match." I thought this guy barely weighs 120 pounds soaking wet. This will be simple, and I immediately accepted his challenge. Then he said, "But we’re going to arm wrestle — Chinese style." I agreed since I really thought I could take him any way that he wanted to wrestle. At the time, I weighed about 225 pounds to his 120 pounds. So we got to it, and I will confess that trying to twist his arm was like trying to twist a piece of steel! He looked at me and smiled while I was giving it all I had. Then he just dumped me over like it was nothing at all. He was quite a martial artist– the best I’ve ever seen. Yet with skill that masterful, he was always very warm and friendly — the kind of guy everyone wanted to meet."

"I wouldn't have put a dime on anyone to beat Bruce Lee in a real confrontation. Bruce Lee was the best street fighter I ever saw, even to this very day, and not just pound for pound — but against anyone in a real fight."

"His martial art skills made Lee arguably the greatest martial artist of his time — or any other."

"The story was particularly serious . . . I know Bruce Lee from secondary school in Nigeria. I come from Ghana, and there has always been a race, a loving rivalry between two countries. So I was picked on. Every child who is bullied, has an imaginary hero. I had several, and Bruce Lee was the greatest. Every little boy has a little bit of Bruce Lee in him."

"There's no doubt in my mind that if Bruce Lee had gone into pro boxing, he could easily have ranked in the top three in the lightweight division or junior-welterweight division."

"The slender, swift Bruce Lee was the Fred Astaire of martial arts, and many of the fights that could be merely brutal come across as lightning-fast choreography."

"I wanted to do in boxing what Bruce Lee was able to do in the martial arts. Lee was an artist and, like him, I try to get beyond the fundamentals of my sport. I want my fights to be seen as plays."

"In a dictionary, you say "greatest", you say "Bruce Lee", that's the way it is. He is second to no one."

"When Bruce Lee kicked, you don't shut your eyes. Because when you shut your eyes, you cannot see Bruce Lee kick it's so fast! Human beings cannot move like cartoon [sound effects], that's the fastest you can be. Even Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson, their punches are fast, but you still can see [them]."

"If Bruce Lee wasn't the greatest martial artist of all time, then certainly he is the number one candidate."

"I considered him by far the greatest. And for those who don't considering him the greatest, at least he is the top candidate for being actually the greatest."

"Every kid, I believe, in America noticed that guy behind The Green Hornet— the one who could kick, the one who could punch, the one who could move so amazingly—all eyes centered on him. … The makers of The Green Hornet had to actively restrain Bruce Lee from being himself because they realized every time they saw the rushes that everything else was wiped off-screen."

"I truly liked and admired Bruce. I worked with him some and he helped me in my foot movement and back fist. Bruce probable weighed 135 pounds at most, but he could hit like a mule. I know, because he knocked me under Sharon Tate’s barstool at Columbia Pictures in 1968. Bruce never confronted any big men to my knowledge. There are stories out there, but none I personally know of. I will say this; I would have picked Bruce in any street situation. He had the knowledge and the attitude to carry him through anything."

"I remember many times my father (Ed Parker) talking about, pound for pound, Lee was the best martial artist, he'd ever seen."

"Bruce Lee is my idol. I need to learn some techniques of Bruce Lee, especially the quickness of his hands and legs."

"Actually, the father of mixed martial arts, if you will, was Bruce Lee. If you look at the way Bruce Lee trained, the way he fought, and many of the things he wrote, he said the perfect style was no style. You take a little something from everything. You take the good things from every different discipline, use what works, and you throw the rest away."

"The first really important book I read about filmmaking was The Film Technique by Pudovkin. This was some time before I had ever touched a movie camera and it opened my eyes to cutting and montage."

"The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes."

"The reason movies are often so bad out here isn't because the people who make them are cynical money hacks. Most of them are doing the very best they can; they really want to make good movies. The trouble is with their heads, not their hearts."

"When I made my first film, I think the thing was probably helped me the most was that it was such an unusual thing to do in the early 50s for someone who actually go and make a film. People thought it was impossible. It really is terribly easy. All anybody needs is a camera, a tape recorder, and some imagination."

"The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."

"If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space? ... Those of us who are forced by their own sensibilities to view their lives in this perspective — who recognize that there is no purpose they can comprehend and that amidst a countless myriad of stars their existence goes unknown and unchronicled — can fall prey all too easily to the ultimate anomie. … The world's religions, for all their parochialism, did supply a kind of consolation for this great ache … This shattering recognition of our mortality is at the root of far more mental illness than I suspect even psychiatrists are aware."

"I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker."

"You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it’s really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas."

"I don't like doing interviews. There is always the problem of being misquoted or, what's even worse, of being quoted exactly."

"The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed."

"Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write War and Peace in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling."

"One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film."

"Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous."

"Think [Schindler's List] was about the Holocaust?... That was about success, wasn’t it? The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. ‘'Schindler’s List’' is about 600 who don’t. Anything else?"

"There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories."

"I have always enjoyed dealing with a slightly surrealistic situation and presenting it in a realistic manner. I've always liked fairy tales and myths, magical stories. I think they are somehow closer to the sense of reality one feels today than the equally stylized "realistic" story in which a great deal of selectivity and omission has to occur in order to preserve its "realist" style."

"Include utter banalities."

"Is it good or bad? Is it necessary? Can I get rid of it? Does it work?"

"[Kubrick] always said that it was better to adapt a book rather than write an original screenplay, and that you should choose a work that isn't a masterpiece so you can improve on it. Which is what he's always done, except with Lolita."

"When you think of the visual style, when you think of the visual language of a film there tends to be a natural separation of the visual style and the narrative elements, but with the great, whether it is Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick or Hitchcock what you're seeing is inseparable, a vital relationship between the images and the story he's telling."

"I love almost all of Stanley Kubrick, there’s almost no Stanley Kubrick I don’t love. I love Lolita, I love Dr. Strangelove. I love A Clockwork Orange, obviously. I even like a lot of Barry Lyndon (laughs). And early stuff, like The Killing and Paths of Glory. … It’s ridiculous. Look, he made the best comedy ever, he may have made one of the best science fiction movies ever, he made the best horror movie ever. I couldn’t watch the end of The Shining. I went through half The Shining for years before I could finish, because I’m a writer and as soon as he starts writing “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” I had to turn it off. It’s almost like Picasso in that he mastered so many different genres. … he took his time and patience and he had a crew of like 18 people. They were very handmade movies these were not large behemoths that he did; they were very thoughtful and his editing process was long. He’s kind of without peer really. If I was gonna settle on a director, probably Kubrick."

"You say, 'Gee, I wish he'd made more [films].' But these were enough. Because there's so much in each one. You know, there's so much. Yeah, it would've been nice for him to have made more. But that's not the process. That wasn't his process, and what he did make was something so special and unique, it's like a different movie every time you see it."

"God is a great concept, [but it] doesn't work"

"Ten years in and we bone like we're cheating on each other WITH each other. A decade-plus and her clit/brown/taint-area still pOwns my dick."

"Sir, I just think that's it's fucking brilliant that you somehow managed to tie Chuck Norris, Chewbacca the Wookie, and Jesus Christ together."

"Guy from audience: Your wife is your beard! Kevin: My wife is my beard isn't she?... Oh, sir, who was it? It was you? That was your move. 'Cause in your head you're going "I'm gonna yell out your wife is your beard and they'll laugh like they laughed at the rock guy!" And you yelled it out, you got it out there, you had the guts to do it and shit, and then I even echoed it for you just in case the cheap seats didn't hear it, and there was fucking crickets, sir."

"What happened to Riggs?"

"What's your name, new best friend?"

"In Hollywood, you just kind of fail upwards."

""[as Tim Burton] Anyone who knows me will tell you that I would never read a comic book." Which, to me, explains fucking Batman."

"A science fiction movie? I don't know. I think I have made one already... Chasing Amy. Because you go ask any lesbian, that'll never happen. Even if, and probably especially because, the dude is Ben fucking Affleck."

"They are creepy, too, man. Those puppets don't make me feel good. I'll be honest, nothing about this show makes me feel good."

"There would always be a bunch of fucking grousers and nay-sayers being like "that was uncalled for.""

"Look at my dick."

"Don't get me wrong, I love Schindler's List, but it's not like "Hey, man, let's get loaded and watch Schindler's List." - SModcast 4: Can I get a (Masturbatory) Witness"

"Americans tend to celebrate even the most mediocre or basic accomplishments... It's like weddings to me. Why is that a big deal?... Why do you have to have a big shindig where you're, like, "Look, we're doing it" and everybody applauds and throws shit in your face. - SModcast 1: Fisting Flipper"

"There is no such thing as pointless violence. City of God, is that pointless violence? It's reality, it's real life, it has to do with the human condition. Being involved in Christianity and Catholicism when I was very young, you have that innocence, the teachings of Christ. Deep down you want to think that people are really good - but the reality outweighs that."

"Movies touch our hearts, and awaken our vision, and change the way we see things. They take us to other places. They open doors and minds. Movies are the memories of our lifetime. We need to keep them alive."

"I don't think there is any difference between fantasy and reality in the way these should be approached in a film. Of course if you live that way you are clinically insane."

"I always tell the younger film-makers and students: Do it like the painters used to...Study the old masters. Enrich your palette. Expand the canvas. There's always so much more to learn."

"I don't really see a conflict between the church and movies, the sacred and the profane. Obviously, there are major differences, but I can also see great similarities between a church and a movie house. Both are places for people to come together and share a common experience. I believe there is a spirituality in films, even if it's not one which can supplant faith."

"Mean Streets dealt with the American Dream, according to which everybody thinks they can get rich quick, and if they can't do it by legal means then they'll do it by illegal ones."

"I like Martin Scorsese as a director very much."

"These movies are like my children, except you can't remake my children in 3D to push up the grosses."

"I don’t know, it’s crazy that people like Donald Trump ... he shouldn’t even be where he is, so God help us. What he’s been saying is really totally crazy, ridiculous ... he is totally nuts. But I think now they are really starting to push back, the media ... finally they are starting to say, ‘come on Donald, this is ridiculous, this is nuts, this is insane."

"The administration’s mean-spiritedness towards our art and entertainment is an expression of their mean-spirited attitude about people who want that art and entertainment, people who also want and deserve decent wages, a fair tax system, a safe environment, education for their children and healthcare for all."

"When you started school, the country was an inspiring, uplifting drama. You are graduating into a tragic, dumbass comedy. My advice is to lock the [university’s] Van Wickle gates and stay here."

"I’m gonna say one thing. Fuck Trump. It’s no longer down with Trump. It’s fuck Trump."

"There’s something more powerful than bombs, and that’s your vote. People must vote!"

"We are in a moment in our lives, in this country, where this guy is like a gangster. We say over and over again: ‘This is terrible, we’re in a terrible situation, we’re in a terrible situation,’ and this guy just keeps going on and on and on without being stopped."

"Give him a chance. That’s what I said right after he was elected. Give him a chance. I give everybody the benefit of the doubt. This guy has proven himself to be a total loser."

"Even gangsters have morals, and they have ethics. They have a code, and you know when you give somebody your word, it’s your word, because it’s all you have is your word. This guy, he doesn’t even know what that means."

"It’s Shakespearean, the whole thing. You’ve got a lunatic saying things that people are trying to dance around. It’s appalling. He wants to be reelected. He doesn’t even care how many people die."

"He doesn’t care for those people, and the people who he pretends to care about are the people he has the most disdain for. They might like to tell themselves or to delude themselves, but he doesn’t care about them."

"I like it when interviews are brief. Are we done yet?"

"Some people say, "New York's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." I say that about other places."

"There's no such thing as not being afraid."

"I didn't have a problem with rejection, because when you go into an audition, you're rejected already. There are hundreds of other actors. You're behind the eight ball when you go in there."

"The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You're in a conversation and everybody's agreeing with what you're saying—even if you say something totally crazy. You need people who can tell you what you don't want to hear."

"When I'm directing a great dramatic scene, part of me is saying, "Thank God I don't have to do that." Because I know how fucking hard it is to act. It's the middle of the night. It's freezing. You gotta do this scene. You gotta get it up to get to that point. And yet, as a director, you've got to get the actors to that point. It's hard either way."

"As you get older, the more complicated things get. It's almost therapeutic to be doing simple things with the kids."

"If you don't go, you'll never know."

"I’m older now and I’m just upset about what’s going on. When you see someone like [Trump] becoming president, I thought, well, OK, let’s see what he does – maybe he’ll change. But he just got worse. It showed me that he is a real racist. I thought maybe as a New Yorker he understands the diversity in the city but he’s as bad as I thought he was before – and much worse. It’s a shame. It’s a bad thing in this country."

"If he had his way, we’d wind up in a very bad state in this country. I mean, the way I understand it, they laughed at Hitler. They all look funny. Hitler looked funny, Mussolini looked funny and other dictators and despots look funny."

"What bothers me is that there will be people in the future who see him as an example and they’ll be affected in some way, but they’ll be a lot smarter and have many more colours to their personality and be more mercurial and become someone with the same values as he has but able to get much further and do more damage as a despot. That’s my worry. There are people who look up to him: ‘I want to be like him.’ But they’ll do it much better and they’ll be more smart about it."

"I mean, a mob boss calls people ‘a rat’. That means you lied and somebody snitched on you, so you did commit the crime. So that’s interesting, and he makes mobsters look bad because there are mobsters who will shake your hand and keep their word. He can’t even do that."

"Trump is basic. He’s just a guy who just thinks he can rattle off his mouth and say anything. Well, I want to say the same thing to him: there are people who are going to say the same thing back to you, no matter who you are."

"Rupert Murdoch became a citizen of this country; look what he’s contributed by this. This is what he’s going to leave. This is his legacy. It’s disgraceful. He’s cynical, amoral, but he has a responsibility. He came here as an immigrant, technically, and look what he did. You cannot justify having Fox News as a mouthpiece for the government. It’s wrong. It’s beyond disgusting."

"You need somebody who’s strong enough to outmouth him – because that’s all he is, mouth – and smart enough and well-informed enough in a debate, say, to override all that nonsense that he does, be-cause basically it’s just name-calling. He has no substance. I don’t know how people fall for it. He’s just a big blowhard. But it ain’t over till it’s over as far as I’m concerned with a guy like him because he’s a dirty player."

"We have a real, immediate problem in that we have a gangster president who thinks he can do any-thing he wants … the problem is, if he actually gets away with it, then we all have a problem. The gall of the people around him who actually defend him, these Republicans, is appalling, and we must do something about it."

"It’s a resentment of people [who are] writing about what we see is obvious gangsterism. They don’t like that, so they say: ‘Fuck you, we’re going to teach you people.’ And they have to know they’re going to be taught … they can’t get away with bullying us – people who have common sense and see what is happening in this world, and in this country. They cannot do it. It’s a shame, it’s a shame that [the Republicans] behave so badly.”"

"Oh, I can’t wait to see him in jail. I don’t want him to die, I want him to go to jail."

"I’m worried because if he gets re-elected, it’s gonna be very, very bad—very bad on a lot of levels. We already have a lot of reparations, if you will—repairs—to do to the damage that he’s already done, and he has to be gotten out. He’s going to be history at one point, though he’d love to be president for life. He jokes about it. I think that if he became president for a second term he’d try to have a third term, and let smarter people manipulate it into getting us into some kind of altercation: a war."

"The only other president who served a third term was Roosevelt because he was in a war, and this fool would go and start something. This was what Marty Scorsese was saying, and I said, ‘Marty, I never thought of that. I never thought he’d go for a third term if there was a war or something. Trump joked about being ‘president for life’ with [Chinese president Xi Jinping] and so-on, he’ll pardon anybody, he’ll do anything. The day after he was elected, I went on a TV show and said I’d give him the benefit of the doubt and say that I hope he won’t be as bad as I think he will be, but he’s turned out to be a lot worse."

"I’m not really political but I saw when [Trump] would go to those rallies and he’d say, ‘I want to get this person and punch him in the face,’ and I’d think, how dare this person have this kind of a rally? How dare you do that! And I think about [Rupert] Murdoch, and what he did to this country. He’s an immigrant who became a citizen, and look what he contributed? Look what this guy did? It’s disgraceful—beyond disgraceful, beyond cynical. Fox News, it’s all about money and power. At what cost? And you’re not even an American. You’re someone who wanted to be an American, and this is what you gave us?"

"I’m just so incensed by this guy. He’s conning people every day. It’s a blight on our country. We have a lot of making-up to do to earn back people’s trust, and to get back on track where certain allies will trust us enough to know that we won’t allow an idiot to get in office again."

"There is no such thing as science fiction, there is only science eventuality."

"Failure is inevitable. Success is elusive."

"I love Rambo but I think it's potentially a very dangerous movie. It changes history in a frightening way."

"Oh, torture. Torture. My pubic hairs went gray."

"The most expensive habit in the world is celluloid, not heroin, and I need a fix every few years."

"I dream for a living."

"Godzilla was the most masterful of all dinosaur movies because it made you believe it was really happening."

"I interviewed survivors, I went to Poland, saw the cities and spent time with the people and spoke to the Jews who had come back to Poland after the war and talked about why they had come back."

"People have forgotten how to tell a story."

"Watching violence in movies or TV programs stimulates the spectators to imitate what they see much more than if seen live or on TV news. In movies, violence is filmed with perfect illumination, spectacular scenery, and in slow motion, making it even romantic. However, in the news, the public has a much better perception of how horrible violence can be, and it is used with objectives that do not exist in the movies."

"I couldn't retire if I hadn't done The Psychiatrist, one thing that was absolutely right! I was a last-minute choice. I hadn't read the script when I came on the set. But I watched Spielberg directing — this kid, this infant in a cowboy hat — and I knew after five minutes we had something. You get so distrustful in this business that you get to expect nothing from a director. If he leaves you alone, he's a good director. But to find one like Spielberg who really brings a scene to life, who genuinely contributes — it makes you want to cry. It's like being an orphan all your life who is suddenly adopted."

"Spielberg has been ridiculed for shooting his actors from below against impossibly Spielbergian skies and a denouement that lays the love on copiously. But there’s nothing simpleminded about how he uses movie magic, as a spell to dispel nihilism, to save us from the worst of ourselves by summoning up the best."

"[Steven Spielberg's films] are comforting, they always give you answers and I don't think they're very clever answers. … The success of most Hollywood films these days is down to fact that they're comforting. They tie things up in nice little bows and give you answers, even if the answers are stupid, you go home and you don't have to think about it. … The great filmmakers make you go home and think about it."

"I think there's a side of me that's trying to compete with Lucas and Spielberg — I don't usually admit this publicly — because I tend to think that they only go so far, and their view of the world is rather simplistic. What I want to do is take whatever cinema is considered normal or successful at a particular time and play around with it — to use it as a way of luring audiences in."

"Steven's films are marked most importantly by a faith in our common humanity. His stories have shaped America's story, and his values have shaped our world."

"An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation."

"A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. When you think it's out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, My father is an idiot."

"Eighty percent of a picture is writing, the other twenty percent is the execution, such as having the camera on the right spot and being able to afford to have good actors in all parts."

"I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut."

"I just made pictures I would've liked to see."

"Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles isn't a realist."

"That piece of Hollywood shit with Billy Wilder [Buddy Buddy] is over, thank God. No outsider can imagine the stupidity, blustering hysteria, authoritarianism, and paralyzing boredom of shooting a flick for Billy Wilder. The so-called "actors" are simply trained poodles who sit up on their hind legs and jump through hoops. I thought the insanity would never stop. But I got a shitload of money."

"The old-timers thought, Well, fire's bad; we'll get rid of it. That was certainly a mistake. We have to get it back into the system somehow, in safe, controlled ways. That's what I'm into now."

"Create turf, save water. Those are the two main principles. And, you know, keep everything alive. Maintain a game habitat. That's important so that you have an entire system at work. Cattle are going to do better, oddly enough, if the birds are doing good and the deer are doing good. You try to manage the whole thing."

"I'm one of those people who feels that agriculture is a creative act. It's a very fine art — that's the way I approach it."

"It makes me feel like a very special person, that I'm able to make my living with my imagination. I developed a big respect for my calling while I was in school, and it remains with me to this day."

"I'm really concerned about the quality of education in the United States. I think it's going down, and I don't think we spend enough money on it. It's unhealthy for our society that we remove ourselves more and more every day from books, from reading, from writing. All areas of education need more emphasis. I think we're a bit lazy here in America. I believe in the ideal of the classic liberal education, and I also think athletics are very important to the education of young people."

"I refuse to be pessimistic. I don't believe in it. I hope that we can find a way to keep from destroying the earth."

"I am never quite sure whether I am one of the cinema's elder statesmen or just the oldest whore on the beat."

"I have a lot to be sad about. Not bitter in any way. But I think it can be fairly said that I've been in on the beginning, the rise, peak, collapse and end of the talking picture."

"I got a job at Metro and went in to see Louis Mayer, who told me he wanted me to be a producer. I said I wanted to write and direct. He said, "No, you have to produce first, you have to crawl before you can walk." Which is as good a definition of producing as I ever heard."

"Every screenwriter worthy of the name has already directed his film when he has written his script."

"First of all, directing is an idea that you have of a total flow of images that are going on, which are incidentally actors, words, and objects in space. It's an idea you have of yourself, like the idea you have of your own personality which finds its best representation in the world in terms of specific flows of imaginary images. That's what directing is."

"It was a great pleasure to make a movie again. Nothing is better; perhaps revolution, but there you have to succeed and be right, dangers which never attach themselves to making movies, and dreaming."

"What are you gonna do? Kill me? Everybody dies."

"What do you mean "gangsters"? It's business."

"Yeah, yeah, I know I got rid of the headache. Now I got cancer."

"What you doin' with such a big ol' dog in New York?" "Never had a wife."

"Indians don't last in prison. They weren't born for it like the whites."

"Twenty-one years between first and second films is longer than any director should have to wait. The case of Polonsky is one of the most dismal hangovers from the McCarthy period."

"Polonsky, along with Chaplin and Losey, remains one of the great casualties of the anti-Communist hysteria of the fifties."

"See the fear and terror as black men run. White is right in the white man’s world, on the big white screen."

"Ask Mr. Lee what fad is in. Now you can wear and be X. Legacy turns novelty."

"These problems do not disappear just because we do not hear about them. There is so much more happening around the world than what is communicated to us about the top stories we do hear. We all need to look deeper and discover for ourselves.... What is the problem? Where is it? How can we help to solve it?"

"It is especially shocking that such a tragedy can go on, year after year, with the rest of the world paying so little attention to it. My Christmas message to Colombian refugees and to the millions of displaced people in Colombia is that the world has not totally forgotten them."

"I was horrified by the attacks against her, [but] Madonna knew the situation in Malawi, where he was born. In that country, there isn't really a legal framework for adopting. Personally, I prefer to stay on the side of the law."

"I was a member of a group called the Kissy Girls. I was very sexual in kindergarten. I created a game where I would kiss the boys and give them cooties. Then we would make out and we would take our clothes off. I got in a lot of trouble!"

"“Make bold choices and make mistakes. It’s all those things that add to the person you become.”"

"“If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.”"

"“Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.”"

"If being sane is thinking there's something wrong with being different....I'd rather be completely fucking mental."

"Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life."

"You’d think, ‘What if I make a mistake today, I’ll regret it’. I don’t believe in regret, I feel everything leads us to where we are and we have to just jump forward, mean well, commit and just see what happens."

"Love one person, take care of them until you die. You know, raise kids. Have a good life. Be a good friend. And try to be completely who you are. And figure out what you personally love. And like go after it with everything you've got no matter how much it takes."

"The great thing about having a bunch of kids is that they just remind you that you're the person who takes them to go poop,"

"“It is a myth that rape is an inevitable part of conflict… There is nothing inevitable about it. It is a weapon of war aimed at civilians. It has nothing to do with sex — everything to do with power. It is done to torture and humiliate innocent people and often very young children.”"

"Every day we chose who we are by how we define ourselves."

"It's not going to accomplish anything to cry."

"Figure out who you are separate from your family and the man or woman you're in a relationship with, Find who you are in this world and what you need to feel good alone. I think that's the most important thing in life. Find a sense of self because with that, you can do anything else."

". “I’ve realized that being happy is a choice. You never want to rub anybody the wrong way or not be fun to be around, but you have to be happy.”"

"We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly."

"“If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.”"

"We want to help young people to identify who or what is blocking them from accessing their human rights, and how to try to overcome that. The message to young people is, no one has the right to harm you, to silence you."

"Know Your Rights And Claim Them"

"I've been reckless, but I'm not a rebel without a cause"

"“My body reacts very strongly to stress"

"“Brad will continue to respond in court as he has consistently done,” she added."

"Since her appointment as a Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina has more than fulfilled my expectations. She has proven to be a close partner and a genuine colleague in our efforts to find solutions for the world’s refugees. Above all, she has helped to make the tragedy of refugees real to everyone who will listen. Angelina’s interest in helping refugees, her personal generosity, and her truly compassionate spirit are an inspiration to us all."

"… an off-screen persona of Globally Conscious Earth Mother and an aggressive on-screen embodiment of Kali, Goddess of Destruction."

"I've also gotten weird letters, suicide letters, girls threatening to jump if I don't get in touch with them. So you think, "This is bullshit," but then you think, "What if it's not? Who wants to take that chance?" I write them back, tell them to hang in there, if things are that bad, they have to get better. But I'm not altogether stable myself, so who am I to give advice?"

"When I was a kid back in Kentucky, we went to this church where my uncle preached. It was kind of a weird Baptist, full-on kind of place. People kept running up to the pulpit and grabbing his ankles and being saved. Lots of crying. Even then, at six or seven, I questioned how pure the emotion could be if it were on such display."

"We're all a mishmash of extremes. I know that I have demons. I don't know if I want to get rid of them altogether, but I would like to experience them in a different way. Maybe go face to face with them. I've never really had the time to go to therapy. Well, here and there. But not enough to help me."

"I despise those prick actors who say, "I was in character," and "I became the character," and all that stuff. It's hideous. It's just masturbation at the highest level."

"I see kids who are complete cynics. They're not dreaming. They're out there with high-powered weapons, smoking crack behind the 7-Eleven. They've seen it all. These kids are going to take us into 2000 and beyond. That's scary, man. I wouldn't say I'm pessimistic or optimistic. I'm more realistic, I guess. But not cynical. I look. I watch."

"I'm not a Blockbuster boy, I never wanted to be. I just don't want to look back in 30 or 40 or 50 years and have my grandkids say, "You did a lot of stupid shit, Granddad. What an idiot you were, smiling for the cameras and playing the game.""

"I had an incident with a really dumb magazine called Voici where they printed a photograph of Lily-Rose, a long-lens shot from very far away, and I just went ballistic. You can sue them — I've sued a couple of times, Vanessa's sued and we win every time — but this time I was beyond suing. I just wanted to beat whoever was responsible into the earth — I just wanted to rip him apart.So I tracked him down and gave him a few suggestions about how to live life and stay healthy and he took my advice. Because that's just unacceptable. They can do anything they want to me — and most tabloids have — but not my kid, not my pure, innocent little baby. She didn't ask to be in this circus."

"I'd like to think I was reborn May 27, 1999 [when his daughter Lily-Rose was born]. Everything changed once I held [her] in my arms, and those innocent eyes stared into mine. Until that moment, I had been possessed with 'me' and 'my career.' Suddenly, there was someone who depended on me, who I was responsible for."

"Lily-Rose is 2-1/2, and each day is a new discovery for her. I want to be there and live it with her. When she was 6 months old, I held a paint brush in her hand. By the time she was 1, I was guiding her hand to paint with acrylics. Also, I showed how to keep her brushes clean. Now, she's intrigued by pastels and going through her 'purple phase.' "She's developing from abstract into more figurative. [showing a fax of his daughter's latest effort: a picture of daddy] See the shape of my head, my hair, my shoulder? An exact likeness. If I had my wish, she'd be a painter. That's why I'm keeping her sketches, even this fax. Someday, if she becomes famous, I can take it to the bank."

""Film star," "movie star" — whatever they want to try to call you is limiting, in the sense that I think an actor has to be able to play characters. To separate these things — you know: "leading man," "action hero," "character actor," stuff like that — I guess if I want to be close to anything, it would be a character actor, which is what I think an actor should be. So any of that "movie star" stuff, I just don't buy it. It just doesn't make sense to me."

"I want to do kiddie movies now. I'm fed up with adult movies — most of them stink. At a certain point with movies it becomes all about mathematics: this has to lead up to this, this has to lead up to that — you're always bound by some kind of formula. But since having kids and watching lots of animated cartoons and all those great old Disney films, I think they're better, they're much better. They're more fun and they take more risks."

"I always figured that once I wrapped a film, then anything beyond that is none of my business. If I can avoid seeing the final product, then all I have in my head is feeling good about the experience."

"The ultimate for me would be to do a feature that didn't require any narrative structure."

"The real movie stars were Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy, Montgomery Clift. How could I put myself in the same category as Clark Gable? Tom Cruise is a great movie star. Do I consider myself a movie star? I consider myself a guy with a good job, an interesting job."

"I do have an affinity for damaged people, in life, in roles. I don't know why. We're all damaged in our own way. Nobody's perfect. I think we are all somewhat screwy, every single one of us."

"Depp: I would never be disrespectful to my country, to the people, especially the kids who are over there serving in the armed forces. My uncle was wounded in Vietnam, paralyzed from the neck down. I would never say those things the way they claim I said them. Interviewer: What exactly did you say? Depp: I essentially said the United States is a very young country compared with Europe. We're still growing. That's it. I wouldn't say anything anti-American. I'm an American, and I love my country. Interviewer: What's your view of President Bush? Depp: What can I say? He's somebody's kid. He's somebody's father. God bless him. Good luck. You know what I mean? I don't agree with his politics, and I'm not going to pretend to, but I don't agree with a lot of people's politics."

"When I was a kid, we watched the Vietnam War on the six o'clock news, and it was desensitizing. You felt you were watching a war film; meanwhile you were really watching these guys getting blown to bits. Parents need to protect their kids from watching that stuff."

"I just don’t quite understand it [the press], really. I don’t understand the animal. It’s a strange, roundabout way of selling something; it leaves a foul taste... The thing that fascinates me is: who cares what an actor thinks?"

"I’ve known that there have been a kind of select group of people, amazing die-hard supporters, even through some of the more, shall we say, odd films. These people, bless them, have stuck with me the whole length of the road. To say that you appreciate it is not nearly enough. It’s part of the essence, or fuel, of what keeps you going.These people are my boss; they’re the ones who keep me employed. A couple of times, they could have said, Let’s abandon him. And they haven’t. You don’t want to let them down."

"Awards are not as important to me as when I meet a 10-year-old kid who says, "I love Captain Jack Sparrow.""

"I like the Coen brothers. Their films are smart and disturbing. I am very impressed by what George Clooney is doing now. He is very political. I like the fact that he did Oceans Eleven and Oceans Twelve, made all that money and then leveraged the money and his success into interesting projects. Johnny Depp has also set up a production company and is showing an interest in risky projects that will not be easy. I am sorry that it is hard for the average person, and even for an above-average person, to see a film that is not a Hollywood production. You see those films only in the festivals. There are few people there. That is worrying. People don't think. My goal in work is to make them think. The media do the opposite."

"We watched everything...A family favorite was Cry-Baby starring Johnny Depp. Whenever the John Waters film broke out in song, we would all scream and start singing, too."

"My primary concept in approaching the production of THX 1138 was to make a kind of theater verité film of the future — something that would look like a documentary crew had made a film about some character in a time yet to come. No film ever ends up exactly as you would like it to, but with minor exceptions, THX came out pretty much as I had visualized it, thanks to some excellent assistance — and a whole lot of luck."

"He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven. … He hasn’t seen her in twelve years. Now she’s twenty-two. It’s a really strange relationship. …This is a resource that you can either mine or not. It's not as blatant as we're talking about. You don't think about it that much. You don't immediately realize how old she was at the time. It would be subtle. She could talk about it. "I was jail bait the last time we were together." She can flaunt it at him, but at the same time she never says, "I was fifteen years old." Even if we don't mention it, when we go to cast the part we're going to end up with a woman who's about twenty-three and a hero who's about thirty- five."

"It was insane, I wish I had filmed it. It was like bringing an audience to the Mona Lisa and asking, 'Do you know why she is smiling?' 'Sorry Leonardo, you'll have to make some changes.' At least the audience understood that THX was not a love story set in the 25th-century, which was the way Warners had planned to advertise it. Instead, the company settled for 'Visit the future, where love is the ultimate crime.'"

"The Johnson film wasn't terrible. I just didn't agree with the politics. I'm not a fan of big government and propaganda films are distasteful."

"We say, 'We think you are a talented, functioning person, and we are hiring you because of your abilities, and whatever you come up with, we're going to take.' If we make a mistake, it will be in picking the wrong person. What we're striving for is total freedom, where we can finance our pictures, make them our way, release them where we want them released and be completely free to express ourselves. That's very hard to do in the world of business. In this country, the only thing that speaks is money and you have to have the money to have the power to be free. So the danger is — in being as oppressive as the next guy to the people below you. We're going to do everything possible to avoid that pitfall. But if we fail, it's another saga in the history of man..."

"One of the fatal mistakes that almost every science-fiction film makes is that they spend so much time on the settings — you know, creating the environment — that they spend film time on it. And you don't have to spend too much film time to create an environment. What they're doing is showing off the amount of work that they generated, and it slows the pace of the film down. And the story is not the settings. The story is the stories, plot. You're always surprised with characters, I mean in film it's even more dramatic than it is in writing, because eventually you actually take a real person and stick them into that character. And that real person brings with him, or her, an enormous package of reality. I mean, Threepio is just a hunk of plastic, and without Tony Daniels in there it just isn't anything at all. In the first film we had maybe 20 colors to paint with, and this time we've had 40 colors to paint with. Well, that doesn't mean it's going to be a better painting. Visual effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. People tend to confuse them as an end to themselves. A visual effect without a story is a pretty boring thing."

"Don't avoid the cliches — they are cliches because they work!"

"People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as "when life begins" or "when it should be appropriately terminated," but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race."

"Sound is half the experience of seeing a film. That's why I have been bothered by the poor sound re-production in many theaters and most homes."

"Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives … and you can either help somebody, you can be compassionate toward people, you can treat some people with dignity — or not. And … one way you become a hero, and the other way … you’re part of the problem. And … it’s not a grand thing, you know; you don’t have to get into a giant laser-sword fight and blow up three spaceships to become a hero. I mean — it’s a very small thing that happens every day of your life."

"There is no Episode VII...Not about Luke Skywalker, not about, you know, that group of people and that struggle to bring democracy back to the galaxy."

"As you go through history, I didn't think it was going to get quite this close. So it's just one of those recurring things… I hope this doesn't come true in our country. Maybe the film will wake people to the situation. … When I wrote it [Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith], Iraq didn't exist… We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass destruction. We didn't think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam… The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable… [In ancient Rome,] why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew? Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler. … You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption."

"One of the amazing things about 'Seven Samurai' is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you've got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said."

"The truth is, the only thing I was inspired by was the fact that it's told from the point of view of two peasants, who get mixed up with a samurai and princess and a lot of very high-level people."

"Being in Washington is more fictional than being in Hollywood."

"The fans are all upset. They’re always going to be upset. Why did he do it like this? And why didn’t he do it like this? They write their own movie, and then, if you don’t do their movie, they get upset about it."

"No, I like my own characters. I want to get Anakin and Obi-Wan in. I want to give Anakin a padawan Let's take that girl there."

"Anakin Skywalker has a Padawan. Anakin has a Padawan."

"It's Star Wars starring an eleven-year-old girl"

"Pleasure's fun. It's great, but you can't keep it going forever; just accept the fact that it's here and it's gone, and maybe then again, it will come back, and you'll get to do it again. Joy lasts forever. Pleasure is purely self-centered. It's all about your pleasure: it's about you. It's a selfish, self-centered emotion, that is created by a self-centered motive of greed. Joy is compassion. Joy is giving yourself to somebody else, or something else. And it's a kind of thing that is, in its subtlety and lowness, much more powerful than pleasure. You get hung up on pleasure; you're doomed. If you pursue joy; you will find everlasting happiness."

"In the world we live in - and the system we've created for ourselves, in terms of it's a big industry - you cannot lose money. So the point is that you're forced to make a particular kind of movie. And I used to say this all the time, with people, you know, back when Russia was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and they'd say: "Oh, but aren’t you so glad that you're in America?" And I'd say: "Well, I know a lot of Russian filmmakers and they have a lot more freedom than I have. All they have to do is be careful about criticizing the government. Otherwise, they can do anything they want"."

"[P]eople are still asking me if I knew Star Wars was going to be that big of a hit. Yes, of course I knew. We all knew. The only one who didn’t know was George Lucas. We kept it from him, because we wanted to see what his face looked like when it changed expression—and he fooled us even then. He got Industrial Light and Magic to change his facial expression for him[,] and THX sound to make the noise of a face-changing expression. Not only was he virtually expressionless in those days, but he also hardly talked at all. His only two directions to the three of us in the first film were "faster" and "more intense.""

"Attention vermin, you are in the presence of a colossus."

"Learning how to be still, to really be still and let life happen - that stillness becomes a radiance."

"To go somewhere and say: 'I have this really terrific movie, but I need some . . . money' - Good luck!"

"I am going to stop calling you a white man and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man."

"You're going to relegate my history to a month? I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history."

"We have 7 billion people on this planet. It’s not that there’s not enough room on this planet for 7 billion people, it’s that the energy needs for 7 billion people are 7 billion people’s worth of energy needs, as opposed to, say, 2 billion. Imagine how much pollution would be in the air and the oceans if there were only 2 billion people putting it in? So yeah, we’re already overpopulated."

"The search for truth is never over and the survival of truth is never assured. We have to choose - do we stand with those who wish to suppress the truth or stand with those who seek it."

"I hate the word homophobia. It's not a phobia. You are not scared. You are an asshole."

"It's not like I let people do things for me, so I guess you can call me a control freak, or you can call me passionate... I'm not a passive person by any stretch of the imagination."

"It doesn't matter who you sleep with, it's how you treat other people in this world."

"It was interesting to have humanoid villains that were rooted in our three-dimensional reality... or four dimensional reality, I'm not sure which!"

"I wouldn't want to forget anything, even the weird stuff and the bad stuff. It makes you who you are."

"I don't think you ever die on Buffy."

"I don't think anything lives up to what you envisioned."

"I'm kissing Alyson Hannigan and I almost stuck my tongue in her mouth because we just got so into it at one point."

"I really didn't want Tara to be bad, and that would have been a component of me coming back. As much as I wanted to come back—and I almost did—that was something that was dogging my not wanting to come back. I just felt like people really loved that character and for her to be bad would just destroy people. So that was one of the reasons I didn't go back."

"I saw them in the grocery store [...] sitting benignly in their spinning racks, their technicolor faces looked like a not very girl-friendly amalgam of muscles, testosterone and pulpy, bloody flesh."

"Willow: Tell me a story. Tara: Okay. Once upon a time, there was, um... a kitty. She was very little, and she was all alone, and nobody wanted her. Willow: This is a very upsetting story."

"Tara: Well, I go online sometimes, but everyone's spelling is really bad. It's depressing."

"Willow: What did I have for breakfast this morning? Do you remember? Tara: Huh? Willow: I-I wanna say bagel, but I think that was yesterday. You had two eggs sunny side up. I remember because they were wiggling at me like little boobs. Tara: Sassy eggs."

"Willow: Don't worry, we're sure to spot Faith first. She's like this cleavagey slutbomb walking around going, "Ooh, check me out, I'm wicked cool, I'm five by five." Tara: "Five by five?" Five what by five what? Willow: See, that's the thing. No one knows."

"Spike: I had a muscle cramp. Buffy was, uh, helping. Tara: A muscle cramp... in your pants? Spike: What? It's a thing."

"Tara: Sweetie, you wouldn't blow off a class if your head was on fire."

"Anya: How 'bout you, ever play Shiver Me Timbers? Tara: I'm not really much for the timber."

"Willow: Questions. Great. Tara: W-we can answer questions. Nigel: Good. I need to know a little bit more about the Slayer, and about the both of you. Your relationship, whatever you can tell me. Tara: O-o-our relationship? Willow: We're friends. Tara: Good friends. Willow: Girlfriends, actually. Tara: Yes, we're girlfriends. Willow: We're in love. W-we're lovers. We're lesbian, gay-type lovers. Nigel: I meant your relationship with the Slayer."

"Willow: Hey, clothes. Tara: Better not get used to 'em."

"Tara: No more talk of gloomy Angel, though. Only happy thoughts. Sunshine, picnic, that spell we did last night. With the oil?"

"Willow: We can come by between classes. Usually I use that time to copy over my class notes with a system of different colored pens. But it's been pointed out to me that that's, you know, insane. Tara: I said "quirky.""

"My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library."

"The art of the theater is action. It is the study of commitment. The word is an act. To SAY the word in such a way as to make it heard and understood by all in the theater is a commitment — it is the highest art to see a human being out on a stage speaking to a thousand of his or her peers saying, 'These words which I am speaking are the TRUTH — they are not an approximation of any kind. They are the God's truth, and I support them with my life,' which is what the actor does on stage."

"Before you can steal fire from the Gods you gotta be able to get coffee for the director"

"We don't have to worry about making it interesting; all we have to worry about is getting rid of the pig."

"[T]he job of mass entertainment is to cajole, seduce and flatter consumers to let them know that what they thought was right is right, and that their tastes and their immediate gratification are of the utmost concern of the purveyor. The job of the artist, on the other hand, is to say, wait a second, to the contrary, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let's reexamine it."

"Cop couldn't find his fucking couch, the living room."

"Or me lying in the... Let me tell ya... Lying in bed the next day, she brought me cafe au lait, she gives me a cigarette. My balls feel like concrete. Eh?"

"You ever take a dump, made you feel you'd just slept for twelve hours?"

"Then I'm over the fucking top and you owe me a Cadillac. And I don't want any fucking shit and I don't give a shit."

"Patel?!?! Ravadahm Patel?!?! How am I going to make a living on these deadbeat wogs?! Where'd you get this from, a morgue? Oh come on! What's the fuckin' point?! What's the fuckin' point in any case!? I gotta argue with you? I gotta knock heads with the cops? I'm busting my balls, sell your dirt to two deadbeats; money in a mattress. I come back, you can't even keep the contracts safe. I got to go out and close them again. What the fuck am I wasting my time... Fuck this shit!"

"Patel? Fuck you. Fuckin' Shiva handed him a million dollars, told him sign the deal, he wouldn't sign. And Vishnu, too into the bargain."

"I find out whose fuckin' cousin you are, I'm gonna go to him and figure out a way to have your ass, FUCK YOU!"

"You cheated on your wife? You did it, live with it. You fuck little girls, so be it. There's an absolute morality? May be. And then what?"

"You stupid fucking cunt. Williamson! I'm talking to you shithead! You just cost me $6,000. $6,000, and one Cadillac. That's right. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it...asshole? You fucking shit! Where did you learn your trade, you stupid fucking cunt?! You idiot! Whoever told you that you could work with men?! Oh, I'm gonna have your job, shithead. I'm going downtown, I'm going to talk to Mitch and Murray! I'm going to Lemkin! I don't care whose nephew you are...who you know...whose dick you're sucking on, you're going out! I swear to you, you're going out! Anyone in this office lives on his wits. I'm going to be with you in a second. What you are hired for, is to help us. Does that seem clear to you? To HELP us. Not to FUCK US UP! To help men who are going out there to try to earn a living, you fairy. You company man. I'll tell you something else, I hope you ripped the joint off, maybe I can tell our friends here a little something that might help him to catch you. You want to learn the first rule you'd know if you'd ever spent a day in your life? You never open your mouth til you know what the shot is. You fucking child."

"Yes, well that's very cute, but you're running this office like a bunch of bullshit."

"Anybody that talks to this asshole is a fuckin' asshole."

"Fuck the machine? FUCK THE MACHINE! What is this, courtesy class? You're fucked, Rick."

"Cop couldn't find his dick, two hands and a map."

"Well, to the law, you’re an accessory. Before the fact."

"That's fucked. That's fucked. You don't look at the fucking percentage. You look at the gross."

"What the hell are you? You're a fuckin' secretary. Fuck you. That's my message to ya: fuck you and kiss my ass, and if you don't like it baby I'm going across the street to Jerry Graff, period, fuck you. Now, I want you to put me on the cadillac board and I want two promising leads and I don't want any bullshit and I want them close together because I am going to close them all, and that is all I have to say to you! [flips him off]"

"Get the chalk! Get the fucking chalk! Put me on the board! Put me on the Cadillac board! Williamson! Pick up the fucking chalk! Hey, Rick I closed em! I closed the cocksucker!"

"I point back in the living room, back to the sideboard. I didn't fucking know there was a sideboard there!"

"You are a shithead, Williamson. If you can't think on your feet you oughta keep your mouth shut."

"April to September it's me, it's no fucking Moss! Due respect... he's an order taker. Talks... oh, talks a good game. But look at the board, and it's me John. It's me."

"A man should BE his job. You are FUCKED at yours."

"Where have you been, Shelly? Bruce and Harriet Nyborg. Do you want to see the memos...? They're nuts... they used to call in every week [...] Did you see how they were living? [...] The people are insane. They just like talking to salesmen."

"The goal of the Left is a government-run country and that of the Right the freedom of the individual from government. Page 236."

"A society can neither advance nor improve without excess of disposable income. This excess can only be amassed through the productions of goods and services necessary or attractive to the mass. A financial system which allows this leads to inequality; one that does not leads to mass starvation. Page 10."

"The good causes of the Left may generally be compared to NASCAR; they offer the diversion of watching things go excitingly around in a circle, getting nowhere. Page 11."

"Society functions in a way much more interesting than the multiple-choice pattern we have been rewarded for succeeding at in school. Success in life comes not from the ability to choose between the four presented answers, but from the rather more difficult and painfully acquired ability to formulate the questions. Page 28"

"Good evening. This is your Captain We are about to attempt a crash landing... Place your tray tables in their upright, locked position Your Captain says: Put your head on your knees Your Captain says: Put your head in your hands... We are going down We are all going down, together... Standby."

"Uh – this is your Captain again You know, I've got a funny feeling I've seen this all before Why? Cause, I'm a caveman Why? Cause, I've got eyes in the back of my head Why? It's the heat. Standby This is the time. And this is the record of the time"

"Golden cities. Golden towns And long cars, in long lines and great big signs And they all say: Hallelujah. Yodellayheehoo Every man for himself. Ooo coo coo Golden cities. Golden towns. Thanks for the ride Big Science. Hallelujah. Big Science. Yodellayheehoo"

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha... Hello? This is your mother, are you there? Are you coming home?...Hello? Is anybody home? Well, you don't know me, but I know you And I've got a message to give to you And I said: okay, who is this really? And the voice said: This is the hand, the hand that takes...Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night Shall stay these couriers from the swift completion Of their appointed rounds"

"Let X equal X You know, it could be you It's a sky-blue sky The satellites are out tonight Let X equal X...You know, I could write a book And this book would be thick enough to stun an ox 'cause I can see the future, and it's a place... Thanks for all the presents... Thanks for introducing me to the Chief"

"She said, it looks Don't you think it looks a lot like rain? He said, isn't it? Isn't it just, isn't it just like a woman? She said, it's hard It's just hard, it's just kind of hard to say"

"Paradise Is exactly like Where you are right now Only much much Better."

"And he said: Now, I'm the Soul Doctor, and you know, language is a virus from outer space, and hearing your name is better than seeing your face."

"And you know the reason I really love the stars is that we cannot hurt them. We can't burn them or melt them or make them overflow. We can't flood them or blow them up or turn them out. But we are reaching for them. We are reaching for them."

"It's the first movie I feel really proud of. But I know it's not a movie for everyone. Some people will embrace it, but some people will hate it, and I'm not really sure how to deal with that. In the past I've made movies that were pretty universally liked. You can't really hate them. You can discard them, but you can't really hate them."

"Gradually I got tuned into the world — that happens on every movie. I did a women's movie, and I'm not a woman. I did a gay movie, and I'm not gay. I learned as I went along."

"The stern dad stuff doesn't work anymore. You have to be level with the kids, you have to be a nice guy... The authority thing just doesn't work anymore. It's like directing a Chinese film vs. directing an American film. On a Chinese film you just give orders, no one questions you. Here, you have to convince people, you have to tell them why you want to do it a certain way, and they argue with you. Democracy."

"Mainstream films have occupied Hollywood but you can get bored very easily. It can be very repetitive and I think now we want something fresh and something inspiring and different, daring. The mainstream film is very expensive to make and it scares people. It's made for the worldwide audience, you have to please so many people, and the business men start running the movies rather than artists. This is back to the oldest way of Hollywood filmmaking, creating a fantasy, but it has been lost. It seems to take a foreign language film to recoup that ultimate movie viewing experience."

"We used to get arrested every other week — that is, the old man would get arrested."

"The funny thing about our act is that dad gets the worst of it, although I'm the one who apparently receives the bruises … the secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It's a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment."

"A picture without falls is as bad as Niagara in the same fix."

"Marriage is fine as an institution, but bad as a habit."

"Our hero came from Nowhere — he wasn't going Anywhere and he got kicked off Somewhere."

"If one more person tells me this is just like old times, I swear I'll jump out the window."

"Charlie Chaplin and I would have a friendly contest: Who could do the feature film with the least subtitles?"

"One who never smiled, carried a face as still and sad as a daguerreotype through some of the most preposterously ingenious and visually satisfying comedy ever invented. That was Buster Keaton."

"Perhaps because ‘dry’ comedy is so much more rare and odd than ‘dry’ wit, there are people that never much cared for Keaton. Those who do cannot care mildly."

"He was by his whole style and nature so much the most deeply "silent" of the silent comedians that even a smile was as deafeningly out of key as a yell. In a way his pictures are like a transcendent juggling act in which it seems that the whole universe is in exquisite flying motion and the one point of repose is the juggler’s effortless, uninterested face."

"No other comedian could do as much with the dead-pan. He used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things; a one track mind near the track’s end of pure insanity; mulish imperturbability under the wildest of circumstances; how dead a human being can get and still be alive; an awe-inspiring sort of patience and power to endure, proper to granite but uncanny in flesh and blood."

"The older Keaton got, the more one could see eternity in his look."

"The screen was just a white sheet. They had this flickering machine. That was the first time I saw this angel with a white face and these beautiful eyes. I knew this was something special. It was the first time I saw Keaton. He wore a flat pancake of a hat, and I just couldn't believe the man's grace."

"I could tell you that those wonderful stories were 90% Buster's... I was often ashamed to take the money, much less the credit."

"What a creative genius — what an inventor… A guy like that, you just sit back and say, okay, I'll never get there!"

"I just want that one day, when I retire, that people still remember me like they remember Buster. I really want someone to respect me the way they respect Buster."

"Watch his beautiful, compact body as it pirouettes or pretzels in tortured permutations or, even more elegantly, stands in repose as everything goes crazy around it. Watch his mind as it contemplates a hostile universe whose violent whims Buster understands, withstands and, miraculously, tames. Watch his camera taking his picture (Keaton directed or supervised all his best films); it is as cool as the star it captured in its glass... The medium was still in its infancy; comics were pioneering the craft of making people laugh at moving images. Keaton, it turns out, knew it all — intuitively."

"There are moments in many of his movies that are just poetic... In doing silent movies, no one had done this yet!"

"For me its Buster Keaton's face, with maybe his little hat on... It's being able to look into his eyes and see that sad face."

"He was doing stuff that was surreal."

"It's said that Chaplin wanted you to like him, but Keaton didn't care. I think he cared, but was too proud to ask. His films avoid the pathos and sentiment of the Chaplin pictures, and usually feature a jaunty young man who sees an objective and goes for it in the face of the most daunting obstacles. Buster survives tornados, waterfalls, avalanches of boulders, and falls from great heights, and never pauses to take a bow: He has his eye on his goal. And his movies, seen as a group, are like a sustained act of optimism in the face of adversity; surprising, how without asking, he earns our admiration and tenderness. Because he was funny, because he wore a porkpie had, Keaton's physical skills are often undervalued … no silent star did more dangerous stunts than Buster Keaton. Instead of using doubles, he himself doubled for his actors, doing their stunts as well as his own."

"Another 'great,' and I use that word very carefully, not the way Milton Berle uses it. One of the reasons I love Buster so much is because he lives comedy as well as practices it. Some of his things are better than Chaplin's."

"With his dark, sensitive looks, his face in repose evoking years of quiet contemplation, he resembled a mixture of Buddhist monk and fashion model. He offered the ideal face and acting style for motion pictures, proving less is more. He would become a master of knowing when to do nothing at all."

"Maybe the trouble is that modern comics strive too hard to be sophisticated and knowing. What we've lost over the years is innocence and, as Keaton and company prove, innocence is an integral part of comedy."

"Buster Keaton... will be around forever, because it's unlikely that human beings will ever go out-of-date the way special effects do. Keaton running and clambering onto a moving Civil War train in The General is infinitely more exciting than Christian Slater jumping from a helicopter onto a speeding locomotive in Broken Arrow because what Keaton does is real, and the camera captures and preserves his feats for posterity. In Broken Arrow we never see Slater (or the stuntman, for that matter) leaping from the helicopter to the train. Instead there are several cuts, and we must suspend our disbelief and assume that the feat has been accomplished. Which means that it's no feat at all."

"What Keaton did physically, is actually quite startling when you discover that he did all of his own stunts… The famous one is when the house falls. He had to stand on a mark. I'm told it was a nail — if he moved an inch to one side he would have been crushed to death."

"Sweetheart, I'm the biggest ripped-off cartoonist in the history of the world, and that's all I'm going to say."

"Four guys could get together and make their own movie, in a year, but nobody does it 'cause they got bills to pay. What I'm saying is, that's what I would do, if I was young. I wouldn't even get a job. I'd get a couple of computers and a bunch of guys, we'd eat crap for a year, millionaires the next year if we did a good film. It's so extraordinary. Instead of crying about getting a job at Disney or "things are falling apart", things the old animators were doing when I was a kid, "it's all crumbling!" It's not crumbling, you're crumbling! You got these computers that could do this stuff for nothing! What do you do with it? You try to get a job for some asshole studio. It's so dumb."

"When I had my own company on Traffic and Coonskin, all metaphors were able to get to the screen clearly. In Cool World, with the producer and Paramount watching me carefully to make sure I was in good taste, I instinctively poured stuff into the picture that I wanted to talk about. But when you force stuff, it's not really very clear. But, I have a great love for Max Fleischer, especially some of his Black & White Betty Boops with their strange Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong black folk tale jazz hipness that part of Cool World was a homage in style to those films and that style of cartooning. The Grim Reaper is right out of a Max Fleischer cartoon or old Terrytoons, which is why I hired and love Milton Knight the artist. He understands totally the Uncle Remus fable like qualities behind Fleischer and Terrytoons. Milton Knight is probably the purest artist of that style in the business. He has a hard time because studios think he is old fashioned...but that's the point."

"Did I have a responsibility to discuss issues? Absolutely. Bobby Dylan was discussing issues – Disney wasn’t."

"Wizards was about the creation of the state of Israel and the Holocaust, about the Jews looking for a homeland, and about the fact that fascism was on the rise again, I thought. That was way before the Right Wing made their appearance again, and I felt that things were shifting back. So on that level, Wizards was a very personal film."

"Sick of Hollywood, tired of fighting and selling out as an artist. I don't believe anyone should do the same thing for the rest of his life. We get a very short time on this planet. Challenging oneself is very important. It's not that I couldn't make other great animated films, but I'd done what I wanted to do, which was make animation an adult medium, if one wanted it to be. And I'd proven to myself that it could work, and it was time to move on to something else. When I sell a painting, I get very excited. I need one person to like what I do, not a million. It's a different structure here. Plus the Hollywood thing. I mean, Hollywood is no place to grow up, no place to live. It's no place to have any friends, no place to enjoy life. It's a disgusting, horrible, craze-driven town. It's only how much do you make, or how fancy a car you have, that determines your status there. And everyone's lying so much that they don't even know they're lying anymore. There's no reality to Hollywood. The fees they pay directors are obnoxious, the money they spend on movies could feed entire starving African... I mean, fuck 'em. I made a few bucks and got out. I don't want to spend the rest of my life with those people. They're disgusting people, and you can quote me on that. There's a lot of great talent there, but it's no place I wanted to spend much time. I'd rather spend time with Rembrandt and Goya at home. They're better company than those schmucks who never read Lord Of The Rings."

"You can only make the slit so much higher, the stiletto so much taller."

"I guess I'm hyper-self-conscious about people thinking that I'm egotistical, but there's a difference between being egotistical and knowing your value as a product and an actor. I know my value as a product, and I've divorced myself as a human from myself as a product."

"... style without substance is nothing, the substance in the story was the most important thing. Of course, there is a layer of style. If I were a director working in a different era, I would have had to be at MGM. I don't think I'd probably know how to make anything but enhanced reality, because that's what comes naturally to me."

"I believe in a parallel universe of image and fantasy that isn't so much fantasy as it is forever sealed in films and things that have entertained us for years. This parallel universe has influenced me perhaps even more than the real world or the physical world. Because when I think of certain things, like a beautiful woman, its most likely someone I saw on film... these are things I've been taking from film or television and applying it to real life."

"The thing that really breeds career longevity in this profession is doing good work. You can make $20 million a movie, but does that mean you'll still have a job when you're 60? It's a profession that eats people up and wants constant turnaround, so you have to dedicate yourself to learning and making the most of whatever gift you may have."

"I've had different opportunities in my life, but I've tried to maintain the spirit of an amateur. Our culture roots everything in the barometer of success and how much money you make. But if you really just aspire to a life in the arts, it's really not a barometer at all."

"A lot of American actors when they do Shakespeare put on a phoney English accent and it drives me crazy. You're always fighting against the idea that only the British know how to do Shakespeare."

"The experience on that movie (Dead Poets Society) was, for lack of a better term, life-altering. Peter Weir has a unique talent for making movies that are intelligent but also mainstream. I've never been terribly successful at doing that."

"I never thought that I would be labeled something like Generation X because of that movie (Reality Bites). I had no idea going into it, and it wasn't a label I could relate to."

"One of the things that's great about Training Day is that you have two very distinct personalities, but it's true: it also has a great plot. If you can do both, it's incredibly exciting for the audience. Oftentimes, you have art films that have no narrative to speak of and instead offer characterization; then you have mainstream movies that are simple formulas, A-B-C-D. Training Day is a good combo."

"People love actors. They love reading about them and thinking about their lives. But they also secretly hate them. They think their lives are frivolous and all they do is go to parties, and they don't know real problems... There's something at the root of our love-hate relationship with celebrity that I think has the makings, if you could do it in a really substantive way, of a great modern American novel."

"I think what I meant, particularly as a young actor, is that you really struggle with the sense of being undeserving of the attention. And you're right. It happens all the time, there's some new young actor who people are gonna put on the cover of magazines and will talk about, and all you did is say 15 lines in a movie. You know, it's not like you started Greenpeace or something. They don't even put the guys who started Greenpeace on the cover of a magazine... So you understand the sense of fraudulence, and it's attached to yourself, you know? And that's what I was struggling with."

"All that stuff with the tabloids is a kind of luxury tax I pay for all the good things I do in my life."

"People look at your life and see things as a big deal that aren't a big deal to you. What I mean is, the chapter breaks are different for me. I'll read about my divorce, and what people think about it, and, well, it's so inaccurate, usually, but the fact is, I wouldn't want it to be accurate. Because it's my truth. When I was younger, it was more important to me to come off well. Now, I just want to try to be good at what I do."

"...But the truth is, I've never wanted to be a movie star - and I've been pretty clear about that."

"Writing the book (The Hottest State) had to do with dropping out of college, and with being an actor. I didn't want my whole life to go by and not do anything but recite lines. I wanted to try making something else. It was definitely the scariest thing I ever did. And a huge learning experience about how not everybody's going to like you, or like what you do. And you have to ask yourself, is it worthwhile? Or am I just doing it to be liked? And it was just one of the best things I ever did. The second book (Ash Wednesday) was so much more fun because of that. The first was just a novelty act, like, 'The kid from Reality Bites wrote a book? Who does he think he is?' And I understand that."

"What I love about Celine, what I felt really proud about that script, is that she's really a fully dimensional woman. It's very rare in movies that you don't see a male projection of a fantasy woman. I mean, Julie deserves 90% of the credit, 100% of the credit, but I feel proud of the collaboration that created that character. Her work in that movie is my favorite thing about it."

"I was really nervous to read it because I really wanted to like it, you know, 'cause I've had this problem in my life before. I'll get offered something by people I respect and want to work with, but I can't pretend I like it... Hank's just a horrible guy and he's so sad, and he hates himself and he never does the right thing. But I had to admit that it was kind of the challenge I was looking for."

"One of the most difficult aspects of being an actor is trying to find the right work. Work that speaks to an audience, that you enjoy doing and that is reflective of your artistic sensibility. To be a contemporary movie actor, you have to kill people - that's basically it. If you don't cock'n'load'n'fire a Smith&Wesson at some point in your film career, you're not going to have a film career. There just aren't enough movies that I like to keep me working in movies all the time. Well, let me rephrase that: there aren't enough available parts."

"The older you get, the humbler you get. I know I don't have that much to offer, and I know I've now read Moby Dick and Anna Karenina, and if I had read those books before I wrote The Hottest State, I don't think I'd have published it. I had the arrogance of the uneducated, which sometimes you need."

"It's its own form of cinema, it's its own entity. I think Chekhov would like Before Sunset because it's all about nuance. Any decent screen-writing school would throw that script out. There's no beginning, middle and end, it's completely fluid, just chasing the nuance of life, and kind of believing whatever God is lives in this kind of energy that flows between all of us. I kind of live for that, for that chance that you might get another opportunity to be a part of something like that."

"In grade school they say you have to pick a profession and stick to it... and people stop looking at their lives as a work in progress. If you don't stay in touch with yourself, you kind of lose focus. If you're going to spend a life in the arts, you need to be infused with a sense of gratitude and a sense of wonder. It's a privilege to do this profession. But there is a payment you have to make for that privilege, which is to do your best all the time."

"Seeing the play (A Lie of the Mind) clearly is part of why I wanted to direct it. I see hope at the end of this play. People talk about how dark the play was, but I feel like, if you really look at the darkness, you’re able to go through it, and you realize that you can handle dark moments in life and that everything will be all right."

"We live in a funny time. If you don’t go corporate, you can’t compete. You’re relegated as irrelevant. People used to admire that. There used to be something badassed and poetic about it."

"I don't understand the world. I don't understand why some people have to suffer so much and others don't. I don't understand the unfairness of all that - I can't wrap my brain around it. Seems like it should be the opposite, like global warming should make Haiti discover that they have the secret plant that makes them all rich, because they've suffered enough, those people."

"When I was younger I really admired people like Warren Beatty who could do one movie every four years. I thought I could do all that: run a theatre company, write a book, make the occasional movie. But life doesn’t work like that, or at least it only does for one or two people every generation. Usually, there’s a little give and take, you know. It took me a long time to realise that I didn’t understand things as well as I thought I did."

"If I say this people will think I'm kidding, but I learned so much about acting working with those wolves on White Fang. If I were to run Juilliard right now, I would make them take a class where they worked with animals. Animals don't know how to lie, so you have to just be with them. Whenever you act weird, or seem like you have an agenda, or are worried about what your hair looks like, they leave the set. They're not interested."

"You have to express yourself. And to express yourself, you have to know yourself. It's actually super easy. Just have to follow your love."

"Charlton Heston once told me that getting ahead in acting was more a matter of luck than talent and skill; but then he hastily amended that. "What I meant," he said, "was that there are a lot of skillful and talented people out there, far more than the industry can absorb, so that it takes luck, at least one good break, to rise above the crowd. However, if you haven't done your homework and developed your skills, one good break won't do you any good because you won't be able to exploit it.""

"Let me make a short, opening, blanket comment. There are no "good guns". There are no "bad guns". Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody — except bad people."

"You do not define the First Amendment. It defines you. And it is bigger than you. That's how freedom works. It also demands you do your homework. Again and again, I hear gun owners say, how can we believe anything the anti-gun media says when they can't even get the facts right? For too long, you have swallowed manufactured statistics and fabricated technical support from anti-gun organizations that wouldn't know a semi-auto from a sharp stick. And it shows. You fall for it every time."

"I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can't understand it, don't like the sound of it, or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails. That's why the Second Amendment is America's first freedom."

"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder. Yet in essence, that is what you have asked our loved ones to do, through an ill-contrived and totally naive campaign against the Second Amendment."

"You could say that the paparazzi and the tabloids are sort of the "assault weapons" of the First Amendment. They're ugly, a lot of people don't like them, but they're protected by the First Amendment — just as "assault weapons" are protected by the Second Amendment."

"Political correctness is tyranny with manners."

"Telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression? Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason. You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that ... and abide it ... you are — by your grandfathers' standards — cowards."

"Thank you all for coming and thank you for supporting your organization. I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today. Or course, you have a right to be here. As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that. But it's fitting and proper that we should do this. Because NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity. I have a message from the mayor, Mr. Wellington Webb, the mayor of Denver. He sent me this and said, "Don't come here. We don't want you here." I said to the mayor, well, my reply to the mayor is, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I've run small errands for my country, from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you here in this room could say the same thing. But the mayor said "Don't come." I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for the newspaper ads saying the same thing, "Don't come here." This is our country. As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land."

"NRA members are in city hall, Fort Carson, NORAD, the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center. And yes, NRA members are surely among the police and fire and SWAT team heroes who risked their lives to rescue the students at Columbine. "Don't come here"? We're already here. This community is our home. Every community in America is our home."

"Tragedy has been and will always be with us. Somewhere right now, evil people are planning evil things. All of us will do everything meaningful, everything we can do to prevent it, but each horrible act can’t become an axe for opportunists to cleave the very Bill of Rights that binds us. America must stop this predictable pattern of reaction. When an isolated terrible event occurs, our phones ring demanding that the NRA explain the inexplicable. Why us? Because their story needs a villain. ... That is not our role in American society and we will not be forced to play it. ... Now, if you disagree that's your right, I respect that, but we will not relinquish it, or be silenced about it, or be told "do not come here, you are unwelcome in your own land.""

"I remember a decade ago at my first annual meeting in St. Louis. After my banquet remarks to a packed house, they presented me with a very special gift. It was a splendid hand-crafted musket. I admit I was overcome by the power of its simple symbolism. I looked at that musket and I thought of all of the lives given for that freedom. I thought of all of the lives saved with that freedom. It dawned on me that the doorway to all freedoms is framed by muskets. So I lifted that musket over my head for all to see. And as flashbulbs popped around the room, my heart and a few tears swelled up, and I uttered five unscripted words. When I did, that room exploded in sustained applause and hoots and shouts that seemed to last forever. ... So as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those words again for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: From my cold dead hands!"

"Sam is the only person I've ever physically threatened on a set."

"I always work on the theory that the audience will believe you best if you believe yourself. This meant that I had to come to understand Moses well enough to believe in my portrayal of him."

"To me Moses is all men grown to gigantic proportions. He was a man of immense ability, immense emotions, immense humanness and immense dedication. There is something of Moses in each of us — the more there is, the better we are. It is interesting to note that once Moses climbs Mt. Sinai and talks to God there is never contentment for him again. That is the way it is with us. Once we talk to God, once we get his commission to us for our lives we cannot be again content. We are happier. We are busier. But we are not content because then we have a mission — a commission, rather."

"Moses is the keystone to every man's ethical code. He was the first man of record in history to conceive of the law as separate from the will of a ruler, to choose whether a man should live by grace of law, or law by grace of man. In a literal sense Moses lives at every council table today."

"It's fashionable for modern actors to talk about getting "inside" a character. But you can't get to the inside without getting the outside right first."

"Celebrity is a corrosive condition for the soul. I have tried to restrain its inroads on me, but there are odd corners of my character that have been harmed."

"I used to think if it wasn't possible to be a family man and a totally dedicated artist, I'd rather be the former. I'm an idealist and a romantic."

"To be an actor you need four things: energy, concentration, a lot of luck and, of course, good roles."

"I have played some of the great men in history and I believe in the great man who does heroic deeds, even in these egalitarian times."

"“You simply disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don’t. We disobey the social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.” 16 February 1999"

"My dear friends, colleagues, and fans, my physicians have recently told me I may have a neurological disorder whose symptoms are consistent with Alzheimer's disease. So I wanted to prepare a few words for you now because when the time comes, I may not be able to."

"I have lived my whole life on the stage and screen before you. I found purpose and meaning in your response. For an actor that is no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can't part with you, which is why I won't exclude you from this stage in my life. For now, I'm not changing anything. I will insist on work when I can; the doctors will insist on rest when I must. If you see a little less spring in my step, if your name fails to leap to my lips, you will know why. And if I tell you a funny story for the second time, please laugh anyway."

"I'm neither giving up nor giving in. I believe I'm still the fighter that Dr. King and JFK and Ronald Reagan knew. But it's a fight I must someday call a draw. I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure."

"I also want you to know I'm grateful beyond measure. My life has been blessed with good fortune. I'm grateful I was born in America, that cradle of freedom and opportunity where a kid from the Michigan North Woods can work hard and make something of his life. I'm grateful for the greatest words ever written, that let me share with you the infinite scope of the human experience. As an actor, I'm thankful I have lived not one life, but many."

"It could be that today's conservative movement remains in thrall to the same narrative that has defined its attitude toward film and the arts for decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60s and '70s, this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemably liberal institution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early 20th century up through the '40s, '50s and into the mid-'60s]. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, and major stars like John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Charlton Heston. These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and John Huston, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Spencer Tracy. The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences. As the younger, more left-leaning "New Hollywood" generation swept into the industry in the late '60s and '70s, this older group of Hollywood conservatives faded away, never to be replaced. Except for a brief period in the '80s when the Reagan Presidency led to a conservative reengagement with film—with popular stars like Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making macho, patriotic action films—conservatives appeared to abandon popular culture altogether. In the wake of this retreat, conservative failure to engage with Hollywood now appears to have been recast by today's East Coast conservative establishment into a generalized opposition toward film and popular culture itself. In the early '90s, conservative film critic Michael Medved codified this oppositional feeling toward Hollywood in his best-selling book Hollywood vs. America."

"I'm not sure sophisticated comedy has a place on television any more … I'd like to think it still does … But I'm not sure the networks are interested, I'm not sure anybody else is interested in sophisticated comedy any more."

"I accept that you live with remorse every day of your life but I live with tragedy every day of my life. She was a terrific kid. She was a wonderful person and I miss her all the time. I accept your apology. I forgive you. However, I cannot give your release my endorsement. To give that a blessing would be a betrayal of my sister's life."

"Big hands, big feet, big disappointment."

"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."

"In movies you can shoot a guy 3,000 times and get a 'PG-13', but if you say the 'F' word twice it's automatically an 'R'. I'll let that be its own comment."

"Drew Barrymore: Eddie Vedder said something like, "The more you're known as a personality, the less you're accepted as an entertainer." Edward Norton: I would agree with that. On the other hand, I hate the "dark prince" act that some actors put on when they're doing publicity. If it's for real, if you're really a dark prince, then don't sit down with an interviewer and act like a dark prince. I don't necessarily love doing these things, but once you've agreed to do them, I think you ought to get on board."

"An all-too-common reaction to something like racism is to hate the act so much you dismiss the person. But in [American History X] you're forced to confront the complexity of the character and his tragedy - and the fact, which people don't want to recognise, that someone like him can come out of a normal middle-class home."

"My feeling is that it is film, the responsibility of people making films and people making all art to specifically address dysfunctions in the culture. I think that any culture where the art is not reflecting a really dysfunctional component of the culture, is a culture in denial. And i think that's much more intensely dangerous on lots of levels than considered examinations of those dysfunctions throught art is dangerous."

"[On the number of victims in the Holocaust] I mean when the war was over they said it was 12 million. Then it was six. Now it’s four. I mean it’s that kind of numbers game The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine, several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century, 20 million people died in the Soviet Union. Nobody wants to have their name, you know, besmirched on the front of newspapers and people say wicked things about them and their family and call them all sorts of names, accuse them of being anti-Semitic and everything else. I mean that’s not part of my design. I don’t enjoy experiencing that. That’s just coming from some place that I have no control over."

"The precursors to a civilization that’s going under are the same, time and time again. … What's human sacrifice if not sending guys off to Iraq for no reason?"

"If you're going to wear three hats, you'd better grow two more heads."

"I don't think of myself as either American or Australian really, I'm a true hybrid. It's a good thing for me because both of them are really good countries."

"My family means more to me than the artificial trappings of my career. If ever I had to choose between my career and my family, the wife and kids would definitely come out on top."

"I'm not anti-Semitic. My Gospels are not anti-Semitic. I've shown it to many Jews and they're like, it's not anti-Semitic. It's interesting that the people who say it's anti-Semitic say that before they saw the film, and they said the same thing after they saw the film."

"I don't feel like I want to get in front of a camera any more. I like getting, you know, just being a slob behind a camera and watching other people look good. You know, I might not hurry back. I might go and go somewhere no-one can find me. You know where that is? You know where the place is no-one can find you? I was thinking of pitching my tent right next to the weapons of mass destruction. Then no-one would find me."

"They take it up the ass. [pointing at his posterior] This is only for taking a shit."

"I became an actor despite that. But with this look, who's going to think I'm gay? It would be hard to take me for someone like that. Do I sound like a homosexual? Do I talk like them? Do I move like them?"

"Hey, I'm for love, not war. How about we have a beer?"

"The L.A. Times, it's an anti-Christian publication, as is the New York Times."

"There is no salvation for those outside the Church [...] I believe it."

"[On criticism of Catherine Emmerich, the 19th century Augustinian nun whose visions greatly influenced Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ] Why are they calling her a Nazi? ... Because modern secular Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church. And it's a lie. And it's revisionism. And they've been working on that one for a while."

"This is not a Christian versus Jewish thing. '(Jesus) came into the world and it knew him not.' Looking at Christ's crucifixion, I look first at my own culpability in that."

"The only way to maintain a moderate sum of happiness in this life, is not to worry about the future or regret the past too much."

"Fucking Jews... Jews are responsible for all wars in the world."

"What are you looking at, sugartits?"

"After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the L.A. County sheriffs. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person. I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said and I apologize to anyone who I have offended. Also, I take this opportunity to apologize to the deputies involved for my belligerent behavior. They have always been there for me in my community and indeed probably saved me from myself. I disgraced myself and my family with my behavior and for that I am truly sorry. I have battled the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse. I apologize for any behavior unbecoming of me in my inebriated state and have already taken necessary steps to ensure my return to health."

"I fully support the efforts of Mr. & Mrs. Schindler to save their daughter, Terri Schiavo, from a cruel starvation. Terri's husband should sign the care of his wife over to her parents so she can be properly cared for."

"You're an embarrassment to me. You look like a fucking bitch in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of niggers, it will be your fault."

"Who wants to eat?! Who the fuck wants to eat?! Go have something to eat! Hurrrrraaaaayyyyyy!"

"I mean, with all this talk of building walls, and stuff like that, I think it's worth remembering that if you look at the servicemen and the military in this country, a lot of them have names like Ramirez and Hernandez and Rodriguez. And just from my reading, it's interesting that many of these men fight and die for their country – and women – and some of them don’t even get their citizenship until after they’re dead. So I think talk of walls and so forth is nonsensical. Hey, it's not the happiest political climate I've ever seen. There doesn't seem to be a very good option for me."

"People often repeat the fallacy that "film is a passive medium". The statement is usually elaborated like this: "When I read a story in a book, I have to use my imagination to conjure up what the characters look like, the sound of their voices, the appearance of their surroundings, the house, the landscape. When I see a movie, those things are all nailed down for me, so I don't feel as involved." What the person is describing are the most obvious aspects of a given story, that is, its physical properties. They are, in fact, the least interesting and least important components of a story. I do not read books in order to imagine the physical appearance of things."

"A good film is one that requires the viewer to create, through an orchestration of impressions, the meaning of its events. It is, in the end, our ability to create meaning out of the raw experience of life that makes us human. It is the exercise of our faculty to discover meaning which is the purpose of art. The didactic imparting of moral or political messages is emphatically not the purpose of art -- that is what we call propaganda."

"Regarding the doll in the Purge, since it's one of my favorite moments in the series: The Custodians are the physical embodiment of a very vaporous notion -- human conscience. Does conscience really exist, or is it just a way of convincing ourselves that a center for moral judgment resides within us, thus lending our judgments a natural authority? As always, Trevor prefers to provide a tangible solution. He can't tolerate uncertainty. Whether it is real or not, Trevor understands the usefulness of the belief in conscience as a tool for practical ends, the improvement of society. In the end, the doll which emerges from the Custodian reveals to us that Trevor's artificial conscience, like the classical notion, is no more than a flimsy gimmick, a parlor trick, a plaything of the mind powered by a circular process. (Advocating the existence of conscience usually involves an appeal to our conscience). Notice that Trevor himself winds up the toy while in the train earlier in the episode."

"For a viewer to think the custodian was trying to break free is the exact opposite of what the scene was supposed to convey. There is nothing gained from that kind of ambiguity. Ambiguity is not desirable or meaningful if it confuses an issue that is meant to be clear. This is the challenge of making a film that communicates but doesn't talk down: a lot of viewers and studio execs (and directors) hold that ANY ambiguity is the result of the filmmaker's failure. I disagree, but I also hold that, in order for ambiguity to be effective, certain things NEED to be unambiguous. For example, if it wasn't clear that Judy on the stage is the same character as Judy who'd invited Aeon to the Hostess' lair, then that's just bad execution. If the episode had been finished and seen in a version say, where we don't see her face drawn correctly, and viewers weren't sure it was the same character, they may wonder about things irrelevant to the story's themes, such as "do the custodians alter the appearance of their hosts", or "Trevor is masquerading a different person who is playing the role of Judy on the stage", etc, all of which does not help the story. Thinking that the custodian had a will of its own and wanted to break free is the same type of undesired speculation."

"It's a universal tendency in films to be more about sex and violence than the real world is, but I would pose the opposite question: Why are so many characters that you see on TV so desexualized? A lot of them seem to be completely asexual — especially animated characters — and it implies that those characters are normal. The characters in Aeon Flux are normal people who have normal sex lives and appetites."

"I've been learning a lot about myself from reading about all the stuff I've been up to, not based on any form of truth. I lead a pretty boring life — I sit at home, I'm on the Internet, I eat cereal — that's a typical night for me. I read online about all the places I've been out partying and all the women I've been out partying with. I'm like, "Wow, I should probably go to that place. It sounds like fun. It sounds like I had a good time there." I'm kind of jealous of the life I'm supposedly leading."

"You tolerate me. You really tolerate me."

"Many of your actions to date and those proposed seem to violate every defining principle of this country over which you preside; intolerance of debate (“with us or against us”), marginalization of your critics, the promoting of fear through unsubstantiated rhetoric, manipulation of a quick comfort media, and the position of your administration’s deconstruction of civil liberties all contradict the very core of the patriotism you claim. You lead, it seems, through a bloodlined sense of entitlement. Take a close look at your most vehement media supporters. See the fear in their eyes as their loud voices of support ring out with that historically disastrous undercurrent of rage and panic masked as “straight tough talk.” How far have we come from understanding what it is to kill one man, one woman, or one child, much less the “collateral damage” of many hundreds of thousands. Your use of the words “this is a new kind of war” is often accompanied by an odd smile. It concerns me that what you are asking of us is to abandon all previous lessons of history in favor of following you blindly into the future. It worries me because with all your best intentions, an enormous economic surplus has been squandered. Your administration has virtually dismissed the most fundamental environmental concerns and therefore, by implication, one gets the message that, as you seem to be willing to sacrifice the children of the world, would you also be willing to sacrifice ours."

"Thank you. If there's one thing that actors know, other than that there weren't any WMDs, it's that there is no such thing as best in acting. And That's proven by these great actors that I was nominated with as well as the — as well as the Giamattis, Cages, Downey Jrs., Nicholsons, etc. that were not nominated. We know how great all of you were. My daughter Dylan and son Hopper find it presumptuous and embarrassing to write a speech, and so I'm gonna give it a go without. God, I really thank Clint Eastwood professionally and humanly for coming into my life. The great, great cast that I had to work with, my friends. Where do you go? Dennis Lehane, Brian Helgeland, Ma. Dad. Robin, for being an undying emotional inspiration on this rollercoaster I'm learning to enjoy. Thank you all very much."

"You and your smarmy pundits — and the smarmy pundits you have in your pocket — can take your war and shove it. Let's unite not only in stopping this war, but in holding this administration accountable. Let's make this crystal clear: We do support our troops, but not the exploitation of them and their families. The money that's spent on this war would be better spent on building levees in New Orleans and health care in Africa and care for our veterans. Iraq is not our toilet. It's a country of human beings whose lives that were once oppressed by Saddam are now in Dante's Inferno."

"When you have a precedent set like that, and you have somebody, George Tenet, acknowledging in his book that he knew that the administration was deceiving the American people into a situation that is murdering young men and women from this country and others, that George Tenet and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and George Bush, et al., should be in fucking jail."

"Thank you, you Commie, homo-loving sons of guns."

"Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it. And this is mainstream media. There should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies."

"Who gave this son of a bitch his green card? Birdman!"

"I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!"

"I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. Whether it's going in and out of frozen rivers, or sleeping in animal carcasses, or what I ate on set. (I was) enduring freezing cold and possible hypothermia constantly."

"There's no other art form in the world that affects me more."

"I like my name. My parents were in the Uffizi Gallery looking at a Leonardo Da Vinci when my mom felt me kick. That's how I got my name. My parents were real hippies."

"Drugs? Every one has a choice and I choose not to do drugs."

"With Romeo and Juliet, you're talking about two people who meet one night, and get married the same night. I believe in love at first sight-but it hasn't happened to me yet."

"I'm absolutely clean. I've never tried anything. That's not a lie!."

"I'm not the sort of person who tries to be cool or trendy. I'm definitely an individual."

"I don't have emotions about a lot of things. I rarely get angry, I rarely cry. I guess I do get excited a lot, but I don't get sad and enormously happy."

""You learn after a while that it's not getting your face recognised that's the payoff. It's having your film remembered."

"I hate speaking in front of a large audience. I don't know where it came from...but its just this gut-wrenching fear of slipping up and doing something horrible."

"I’ve always kind of made sure to maintain the sense of who I am and never be mean or cruel or snotty to anyone. Because, at the end of the day, it's not going to help you last in the business, and who wants to be around someone like that? I don't want to turn into ‘that guy.’ That guy!"

"My God, no! I hate this whole hunk thing! I feel when I see myself in that, and these other cute faces, that I'm just part of this meat factory, like, 'Wow! Here's the hunk of the month! This month we're shoving Leonardo DiCaprio down your throat! Isn't he cute. Let's put him on the cover and we'll sell so many more magazines...' That's definitely not what I want to be, and I've tried real hard to get away from that whole situation."

"If you can do what you do best and be happy, you're further along in life than most people."

"The main thing for me right now is just to live my life with my family and friends. They treat me like Leo, not 'Leonardo, Master Thespian'. That's all I need to keep my sanity."

"The last thing I want to turn into is a fat Hollywood jerk. I was brought up without much money and I was happy. I don't think that I will strive for money or success and end up greedy or big-headed. That only leads to unhappiness. I can still be down-to-earth and do this job as long as I enjoy it."

"Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I play. That's why it's called acting."

"It was pretty disheartening to be objectified like that. I wanted to stop acting for a little bit. But it changed my life in a lot of ways, but at the same time, I can't say that it didn't give me opportunities. It made me, for the first time, in control of my career. - On Titanic (1997)"

"One of my passions is to meet people and then imitate them. I love doing that."

"I have the same problem as Edward Furlong. I'm so thin!"

""I was behind a woman at the checkout counter who was looking at the magazines. She turned to me and goes, 'There he is again, that Leonardo DiCaprio. Don't you wish he'd just disappear?' I said, this is the moment where I either go, 'Do you know who I am?' or put my hat further down, pay for my corn-nuts and get out of there....I choose to avoid that. (2005)"

"I remember the casting session that I had where I was a break dancer, having this punk hair cut. They rejected me and I became really disillusioned with the business and said well this is what it's all about, and I haven't even got in to read a line. He said don't worry, some day we're going to get you back into this and it's going to happen for you, which I kind of took to heart. It was one of those situations where I was lucky and fortunate enough to be at the right places at the right time. All of a sudden I was on the set of Growing Pains and got this audition for This Boy's Life and was able to jump into the feature film world. It's really been just simply the fact that I'd been able to work, you know what I mean? I would probably still be trying to be an actor even if I was out of work, but I would probably become a little disillusioned at some point and move on to other things. But it's the one thing that I know that I love."

"I'm shy, but when the time comes to be wild, I'm fun-loving, adventurous, and mysterious."

"On his career: "I admit I've done a few lousy roles in the beginning of my career, like my role in Critters 3 (1991). But at that age, you'll do anything for attention!"

"All I know is that when you make a movie it's something you have to live with forever. It's not a job I take lightly."

"And I love doing what I'm doing and I'd get out of it if I hated it that much. I've said it many times before: There are much worse problems in the world, people dealing with things that are phenomenally more complicated."

"My mom and I lived at Hollywood and Western, a drug-dealer and prostitute corner. It was pretty terrifying. I got beat up a lot. I saw people have sex in the alleys. I remember I was five years old, and this guy with a trench coat, needles and crack cornered me. Early on, seeing the devastation on my block, seeing heroin addicts, made me think twice about ever getting involved in drugs. It's evil. Once you take that step and experiment, drugs can take over your life. You are not yourself anymore. That's something I never wanted. I didn't have a lot of friends growing up. It was kind of just me and my parents. But because of them, the neighborhood did not have a bad effect on me. My dad introduced me to artists, and every few months we'd go to some hippie doo-dah parade as Mudmen in our underwear, carrying sticks and covered in mud. My mother did everything to get me into the best schools she could find."

"When I was young, I used to have this thing where I wanted to see everything. I used to think, 'How can I die without seeing every inch of this world?'"

"I don't have the guts that Romeo did. [on marriage]"

"Dark green is my favorite color. It's the color of nature and the color of money and the color of moss!"

"Certainly after Titanic, where my face was put on every magazine cover around the world and the movie was such a phenomenon, I really had no control over that. So for the last couple of years, media-wise I've been trying to regain some control in what people say about me."

"The challenge is to understand the psyche of somebody like that. There is no true genius or revolutionary ideas, I don’t think, without some element of compulsiveness or madness or obsession, and that’s certainly indicative of Howard Hughes. Understanding his obsessive-compulsive disorder was really the key for me for opening up who this man was."

"I think it’s a real danger, as an actor, when you try to make some statement through your career about what the business should be doing or ultimately what your image should be or how you want to be perceived. I look at every project that comes along and say, “Is this something I can sink my teeth into and can do a good job on?” That’s really how I choose roles."

"As a little kid growing up in Hollywood, I was called 'a little crazy'. And now I guess I'm still that way."

"The fact that Romeo is dopey, lovey-dovey, and it's a corny story. And I was afraid I'd look like a fuffy."

"A lot of actors ask me “what do you do? How do you get into the business?” My only answer is don’t be discouraged. … You have to commit your life to it, almost, and never give up. It’s a cliché, but it’s true."

""I wasn't surprised that Jamie got the award. But I knew that cameras would be stuffed up my face so I had my response ready. Anyone who says they don't practice is a liar." -on losing out on the Oscar to Jamie Foxx during the 2005 Academy Awards."

"On turning 30: "I kind of feel like the same person except more time has gone by. I hate to say that I feel like an adult now. I have to admit I wish I was still 18. After all, even through the time while I was representing that wild kid, I really wasn't. I was just living my life. I was just not making movies at the time."

"On Martin Scorsese: Martin has brought so much to the art form of film, and he is not the type of person who would be upset by not receiving an Oscar, although it is a practical joke that he has not won an Academy Award after all these years. Whatever opinions critics will have of The Aviator, I really think that this is a great piece of art: once again, he has made a great classic film."

"I like to help the whales, the otters, and the dolphins. When I`m acting and I take a break, the first thing on my list is spending time by the sea."

"I lived in Hollywood and, ironically, I didn't know you could just go out and get an agent and go on auditions and try and become an actor, I thought it was like a Masonic thing, like a blood line you had to belong to - until I was 13. Then I realised what you had to do. It is the one thing I know I want to do for the rest of my life."

"As an actor, you're constantly searching for that great character. Also, being a history buff and learning about people in our past and amazing things that they've done, I came across a book about Howard Hughes and he was set up as basically, the most multi-dimensional character I could ever come across. Often, people have tried to define him in biographies, but no one seems to be able to categorize him."

"On rumors: I've heard some pretty bad rumors...that I'm gay. If I want to go to a party with a few male friends, it doesn't mean that I'm gay. I don't see why I can't have friends of both sexes without rumors being spread about me. It's crazy."

"If you hear of any incident about me - a fight, a change of clothes, a little extra gel in the hair, don't believe it till you talk to me."

"Well it's a risk to do a movie of this calibre on a subject matter and a point in history people are not very familiar with. It's a tough subject to sell - so salary-wise you have to make sacrifices to make a certain film happen. I would have been an idiot to pass up the opportunity to work with Mr Scorsese."

"I’ve been in the business since I was 16, so I’ve had a 14-year career. I’ve always had acting in my blood. Doing this, whatever it is, was something I was drawn to since my earliest memories. Ironically, I lived in Hollywood, but never understood that all it took was getting an agent and being persistent."

"On whether there are any aspects of fame he dislikes: You kidding? I feel very fortunate. A lot of people would love to be in my position. There are so many people out there who are suffering trillions of times more than I could ever suffer, and would love to be me. I am a lucky little bastard."

"Everywhere I go, somebody is staring at me. I don`t know if people are staring because they recognize me or because they think I`m a weirdo."

"I'm probably not going to get married unless I live with somebody for 10 or 20 years. But these people (Romeo and Juliet) took a chance and they did it. We don't have the balls that Romeo did."

"The best thing about acting is that I get to lose myself in another character and actually get paid for it. It`s a great outlet. As for myself, I`m not sure who I am. It seems that I change every day."

"Being dubbed as a hunk sort of annoys me. It gives me a yucky feeling."

"I got attention by being funny at school, pretending to be retarded, and jumping around with a deformed hand."

"School, I never truly got the knack of. I could never focus on things I didn't want to learn."

"I prefer ordinary girls - you know, college students, waitresses, that sort of thing. Most of the girls I go out with are just good friends. Just because I go out to the cinema with a girl, it doesn't mean we are dating."

"On working with Martin Scorsese in Gangs of New York (2002): "He's a perfectionist, obsessed with detail. That's why he went over budget and over schedule."

"I don't really have many extravagances. I don't fly private jets and I don't have bodyguards and I don't buy crazy things. I have a couple of houses here and there. I bought a very expensive watch, and I am going to buy a really expensive movie poster, the original for The Thief of Bagdad (1940). I love movie posters."

"A consensus has emerged in our scientific community that global warming is no longer merely a theory but a reality, a crisis with truly global implications for planet Earth and all of us who share it. - Told to thousands at the New Jersey concert for Live Earth"

"There are pros and cons to everything. To be able to do what I do and what I love on this level is a very positive thing. There are certain invasions of privacy, but I hate sitting around complaining about it, I just don't like to hear it come out of my mouth. I'm a very fortunate person being able to do what I do."

""People want you to be a crazy, out-of-control teen brat. They want you miserable, just like them. They don't want heroes; what they want is to see you fall."

"Brothers don`t necessarily have to say anything to each other-they can sit in a room and be together and just be completely comfortable with each other."

"Love at first sight? I absolutely believe in it! You`ve got to keep the faith. Who doesn`t like the idea that you could see someone tomorrow and she could be the love of your life? It`s very romantic."

"Yes, I can play younger than my age. But I can play characters older than I am, too. I`m not an actor who can just play the kid."

"People always like to make up stories. I am not planning on getting married. Then again, I might wake up tomorrow and decide to get married!"

"I insist on keeping a level head. I`ve maintained the same exact home life that I`ve had for 20 years. All I see is more people looking at me than before. But, you know, who cares? You just can`t obsess yourself with this fame stuff."

"I've been very lucky to have achieved a lot of the things that I dreamt of achieving as a young man. But, at the end of the day – and I truly believe this – it is not about achieving great wealth or success. Because they don't bring happiness ultimately. They really don't. What matters is whether or not you've fulfilled the idea of having led an interesting life, whether you've contributed in some way to the world around you."

"As an Academy member, you're not allowed to endorse somebody else when they're up for an Academy Award and if you do, there's a good chance you'll lose your membership. But I have to tell you Leo DiCaprio is so amazing in The Revenant"

"We were peers, I think. Leo's an incredibly intelligent guy who's been through a great amount of life experience over the course of the last few years. He's very dedicated and I think he had a very good idea of what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it."

"He reminds me of that excitement when De Niro and I stumbled upon a way of working together - a similar kind of energy to the actors in the 1970s. It’s very rare for me to find that kind of connection again. Leo will give me the emotion where I least expect it and could only hope for it about three or four scenes. And he can do it take after take.""

"You know, I worked with Leonardo when he was 18 [on The Quick and the Dead]. He was a virgin, and he would talk about that constantly. So I'm hoping we have some time so he can fill in what's happened in between. Maybe show some photos. Because I'm sure life's different now."

"DiCaprio is both a famous actor and perhaps the world’s best-known climate activist. He doesn’t speak on the subject of carbon emissions so much as he preaches. “Humans have put our entire existence into jeopardy,” DiCaprio thunders. Climate change is “the most urgent threat facing our entire species.” Those who question climate policy, he declares, should be banned from public office. “The scientific consensus is in, and the argument is now over.” Few preachers live up to the standards they set from the pulpit, and DiCaprio is no exception. In the summer of 2016, DiCaprio was scheduled to receive an award from the environmental group Riverkeeper. He was in Cannes attending the film festival at the time, so he chartered a private jet to fly from France to New York and back. That’s an eight-thousand-mile round-trip, which in addition to being physically exhausting, amounts to a gargantuan carbon footprint, bigger than the average African might emit in a lifetime. For DiCaprio, it was just another Cannes Film Festival. The year before, he was photographed off the coast of France meandering alone on the deck of a 450-foot, $200 million yacht, which he’d rented as an accommodation for the week. Once again, a lot of carbon."

"His two eyes are different," says Lasse Hallstrom, who directed Leo in what may be his best movie, What's Eating Gilbert Grape. "The left eye is very soft and empathetic. The right eye is more analyzing. One eye oozes warmth, while the other is more penetrating. One eye is psyche, the other is intellect."

"He's probably the world's most beautiful-looking man, yet he doesn't think that he's gorgeous. And to me, he's just smelly, farty Leo."

"With those eyes and his intellect, I see no real limit to his potential."

"A stylized version of our IKEA present. It is talking about very simple concepts. We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In that societal emasculation this everyman is created."

"We wanted a title sequence that started in the fear center of the brain. [When you hear] the sound of a gun being cocked that's in your mouth, the part of you brain that gets everything going, that realizes that you are fucked - we see all the thought processes, we see the synapses firing, we see the chemical electrical impulses that are the call to arms. And we wanted to sort of follow that out. Because the movie is about thought, it's about how this guy thinks. And it's from his point of view, solely. So I liked the idea of starting a movie from thought, from the beginning of the first fear impulse that went, Oh shit, I'm fucked, how did I get here?"

"You want to be able to provide something, and you're pissing down a fucking well. It will suck you dry and take everything you have and, like being a parent, you can pour as much love as you want, and your kid still says, "Just let me right out here, you don't have to take me all the way." You're working to make yourself obsolete. I'm not going to make Persona - my movies are fairly obvious in what the people want and what it is that's happening; it;s not that internalized. What's internalized is how you process the information from the singular, subjective point of view. And that becomes the subtext of it."

"Film-making encompasses everything, from tricking people into investing in it, to putting on the show, to trying to distill down to moments in time, and ape reality but send this other message. It's got everything. When I was a kid I loved to draw, and I loved my electric football sets, and I painted little things and made sculptures and did matte painting and comic books and illustrated stuff, and took pictures, had a darkroom, loved to tape-record stuff. It's all of that. It's not having to grow up. It's four-dimensional chess, it's strategy, and it's being painfully honest, and unbelievably deceitful, and everything in between."

"The movie is not that violent. There are ideas in the movie that are scary, but the film isn't about violence, the glorification of violence or the embracing of violence. In the movie, violence is a metaphor for feeling. It's a film about the problems or requirements involved with being masculine in today's society."

"Violence shouldn't be presented as drama. I think people looking for an easy way out often write scenes where characters come into violent conflict as opposed to looking for the true drama in the situation. That's a shortcoming of a lot of films and television shows. I think certain presentations of violence are not immoral, but amoral."

"I find it amoral if you're making a movie where the problem is solved with a guy standing in the back of pickup truck firing a machine at the bad guys. The morality of it is questionable because the repercussions of violence are incredibly far-reaching."

"I do like movies that take a toll on the audience. I want to work the subconscious. I want to involve you in ways in which you might not necessarily want to get involved. I want to play off those things that you're expecting to get when the lights go down and the 20th Century Fox logo comes up. There's an audience expectation and I'm interested in how movies play with--and off--that expectation. That's what I'm interested in."

"I always feel ill-prepared for commentaries and it had been so long I was afraid I'd forget everything that happened on the film. But having everybody come together for it was really great. It was like a high school reunion. We all reminisced and just had a great time."

"Oh, yeah, I love DVD's. I don't have what you'd call an extensive collection, maybe a couple of hundred or so. But I have something on almost all the time."

"There are some movies I can watch over and over, never get sick of. I'll put one of those on and be puttering around the house. Then a certain scene will come on and I'll just have to go over and watch."

"You know, I don't think I've ever listened to someone's commentary. Ever."

"I tend to over-intellectualize things, to come at them from a structural point."

"I don't have the Tom Hanks fans. When you make the kind of movies I make, you get weird letters from people."

"You can do something that walks a line, and invariably, whatever that line is, it will be crossed by people who don't know any better and want to ape the success."

"I want to make a movie that has enough impact that it's going to do what it needs to do. But I don't want to make a film that serial killers masturbate to."

"For me, the scariest thing about a serial killer is that there's somebody who lives next door to you, running power tools late into the night, and you don't know he has a refrigerator full of penises."

"As much as people pretend 'I fit in, I understand, I get the rules,' there are always times spent away from that where you go, 'I thought I knew. It seemed so clear to me, and then...' That sense of loneliness, or the sense of not fitting in or being out of depth, is probably the most common denominator."

"Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. I don't make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything's not okay."

"You have a responsibility for the way you make the audience feel, and I want them to feel uncomfortable."

"Hollywood is great. I also think it's stupid and small-minded and shortsighted. I'm sure there are people who get into movies so they can get nice tables at restaurants."

"You can either look at your career as the things you're going to leave behind, and they have to be executed flawlessly and you have to know exactly what it is that you're doing. Or you can be realistic about the fact that you're going to learn as you practice what you do."

"I thought it was so strange because I normally make these pitch-black studies of misanthropes or the occasional movie about serial killers, sowhat could the possibly see in this material for me."

"Thank you to the stellar collection of photographers, designers, editors, musicians, costumers, painters, researchers, electricians and craftspeople who without whom I'd just be a bitter man with a lot of opinions"

"He's just scary smart, sort of smarter than everyone else in the room. There's just a handful of these people who know absolutely everything about the process. They could do everyone's job brilliantly. Every aspect is under their control."

"I really don't know why I clicked. I didn't want to be a dancer, I just did it to work my way through college. But I was always an athlete and gymnast, so it came naturally."

"In the 1930s, when I started, Martha Graham was the only dancer doing anything modern, but she did it all to classical music. I couldn't see myself doing Swan Lake every night, and I wanted to develop a truly American style. The only dancer in the movies at that time with any success was Fred Astaire, but he did very small, elegant steps in a top hat, white tie, and tails."

"It's all true. It's true I didn't want to be a dancer. What I really wanted to be was a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Then at 14 I discovered girls, and began to study dancing diligently. At that time dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship. Only later did I discover you dance joy. You dance love. You dance dreams. Of course, the Pittsburgh Pirates lost a hell of a shortstop."

"Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat."

"Once in one's life, for one mortal moment, one must make a grab for immortality; if not, one has not lived"

"Remember the mind is your best muscle ...BIG ARMS can move rocks, but BIG WORDS can move mountains... Ride the brain train for success...."

"The films are realistic fantasies. Bullets are easy. You can buy them. Emotions are not. They're priceless."

"It could be that today's conservative movement remains in thrall to the same narrative that has defined its attitude toward film and the arts for decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60s and '70s, this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemably liberal institution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early 20th century up through the '40s, '50s and into the mid-'60s]. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, and major stars like John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Charlton Heston. These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and John Huston, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Spencer Tracy. The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences. As the younger, more left-leaning "New Hollywood" generation swept into the industry in the late '60s and '70s, this older group of Hollywood conservatives faded away, never to be replaced. Except for a brief period in the '80s when the Reagan Presidency led to a conservative reengagement with film—with popular stars like Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making macho, patriotic action films—conservatives appeared to abandon popular culture altogether. In the wake of this retreat, conservative failure to engage with Hollywood now appears to have been recast by today's East Coast conservative establishment into a generalized opposition toward film and popular culture itself. In the early '90s, conservative film critic Michael Medved codified this oppositional feeling toward Hollywood in his best-selling book Hollywood vs. America."

"This is such a big deal, and my life is so simple. There are very few things — there's love, and work, and family. And I'd like to thank all my families, all the tribes that I come from and, most importantly, my mother Brandy who taught me that all my finger paintings were Picasso's and that I didn't have to be afraid. And, mostly, that cruelty might be very human, and it might be very cultural, but it's not acceptable."

"I'd like to dedicate this award to all the women before me that never had the chances that I've had, the survivors, the pioneers and the outcasts. My blood, my tradition. And I'd like to thank all the people in this industry who've respected my choices and have not been afraid of the power and dignity that that entitled me to."

"Normal is not something to aspire to, it is something to get away from."

"I cannot believe in God when there is no scientific evidence for the existence of a supreme being and creator."

"Attacking the rich is not envy. It is self defense. The hoarding of wealth is the cause of poverty. The rich aren’t just indifferent to poverty; they create it and maintain it."

"You know, when I first went into the movies Lionel Barrymore played my grandfather. Later he played my father, and finally he played my husband. If he had lived I'm sure I would have played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men get younger and the women get older."

"I don't feel I'm old. I just feel I'm me. And I've always been a happy person. I love the human race. I love my work. I love the world—I've been around it four times, you know. And I'm a believing person. I believe in God, even though I can't see him. You can't see the air in this room, right? But take it away and you're dead. And I believe there's something for us after we die. The world isn't wasteful. It keeps going on and I think we do too."

"If you're caught acting, nobody believes you."

"When I was in films, we pretended to kiss but we didn't. It was considered unsanitary. Now they swallow each others' tonsils. It's disgusting."

"I never chose money, I always chose people. I wanted to be around people who knew more than I did. I think that’s why I never fell in love with an actor. They never seemed to know any more than I did. I wanted to be with writers… My idea of a dream man was Thornton Wilder."

"I'm so glad I didn't ruin a man's life by marrying him."

"Thalberg wanted commercial hits. I wanted art."

"According to director Lindsay Anderson, one day while filming The Whales of August he said to Lillian Gish, "Miss Gish, you have just given me a perfect close-up." Bette Davis remarked: "She should. She invented 'em.""

"Lillian Gish is not only the best actress in her profession, but has the best mind of any woman I have ever met."

"For Lillian Gish, My Favorite Actress. On the occasion of her 1st visit to New York of which this book is a practical guide. From Her Chattel, F. Scott Fitzgerald"

"I never cease to wonder at my luck in having for my sister the woman who, more than any other woman in America, possesses all the qualities of true greatness."

"The Cobweb was just plain weird, but I got to know and admire Miss Lillian Gish."

"There was a civil war in this country... Kennedy provoked such hostility and hatred. His death was cheered in the South because of his support for Martin Luther King. He was moving to change things on all fronts. He was starting to end the Cold War. He made a deal with Khruschev and Russia in 1962 to end the missile crisis, and he furthered the... Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. He... described the Soviets for the first time in American history as mortals, like us, who care about their children. He seemed to have an expanding vision of the world, much like Gorbachev did in Russia in the '80s."

"Since that day, the media has chanted the mantra that Oswald did it alone. But the American public... has never accepted it. They smell a rat."

"My father was a Republican and he hated Roosevelt. And that's sort of been the battle of my life, I think. You have to understand I grew up a Republican conservative. I hated Castro. And I put my money where my mouth was because I went to war, but I understood pretty quickly that this was another place, another culture and we would never fit in there."

"[In comparison with the Vietnam war] It's the same story in Afghanistan, Iraq and South America. It's white people meeting people who they think they are better than. And I feel that this war is the war of my life. I've seen it over and over again and if I can do one thing with what's left of my remaining years, it's just to cry it out and say it, I hope, with enough entertainment that people will want see it."

"We have an obligation to those who died ... to remember"

"A sad occasion in that Julian could not follow me out the door. He lives in a tiny room with great modesty and discipline."

"Strong mind, no sun, friends who visit, work to be done, one documentary coming out from Alex Gibney that is not expected to be kind."

"Another film from Dreamworks which is also going to be unfriendly … I don't think most people in the US realise how important WikiLeaks is and why Julian's case needs support."

"Julian Assange did much for free speech and is now being victimised by the abusers of that concept."

"The most shocking part [about the assassination of JFK] is...the sequence of the shooting, the timing,... the wounds and the autopsy. It’s all quite shocking when you...think seriously about it. It doesn’t make any sense the way they described it. That’s the most shocking part of the case. When you start to investigate Oswald, of course there are a thousand interesting things that come up. The files on Oswald were much more closely supervised by the CIA then we knew at the time and were omitted by the Warren Commission. They treated it like a routine investigation, but it was hardly so. We draw a line between the cover-up and the assassination. The cover-up is filled with another cast of characters. That is to say, the Warren Commission itself, who is in charge of the investigation; and the main man, Alan Dulles, the ex-chief of the CIA and one of the most powerful figures in government. He was fired by Kennedy, as were all his top officials, two years earlier. He was put in charge of the investigation and buried certain information. That’s part of the cover-up."

"Fidel Castro was a brilliant person who predicted everything that has happened in the world since 2001... I made the film Comandante with the idea that it would be a historical profile of the man. The film can be seen on YouTube, but it could never be screened in theaters in the United States because they censored it and removed it a week before it was due for release...Then we made Looking for Fidel, which was possibly the most aggressive interview with Fidel. I asked him very difficult questions and that movie was screened on HBO. However, given the good job that Fidel did answering the questions they do not put it on enough on U.S. television. HBO instructed me to ask Fidel hard, tough questions, to put him on the spot. As you all know, that was not easily done and he was brilliant in his answers to all my questions. I think that’s why HBO has not shown the movie again."

"Putin is the most mature statesmen in the whole world right now. He's been there for four American presidents, since Clinton...He's been everywhere, met everybody. And he sees the world as needing balance. It's not a uni-polar world, dominated by the United States... He's been very clear that we need balances of regional power. Unfortunately, the United States just doesn't want to believe that...it's our military side that scares the sh-- out of me,.. as we tend to be arrogant, that's when you become very dangerous. Somehow we have to learn that we don't have to be number one. We can be partners with the world."

"In all my public statements, I was not at all in favor of anything he [G.W. Bush] did. He was a disaster for the country in his reaction to 9/11...Worst president we've ever had... To say that Trump is similar is ridiculous because it trivializes the situation.... He's got enough nutcases around him between Bolton and Pompeo that I would worry very, very much... You've got to look back at George Bush... and understand what a mess he put us into. We have not gotten out of Iraq. We have not gotten out of Afghanistan. We have not gotten out of the War on Terror... which is the greatest fiction since the Cold War back in 1945."

"In January 2018, the experts at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight, where it had stood during the darkest days of the Cold War, from 1953 to 1960. The latest move of the hands was precipitated by the recklessness in Trump’s nuclear thinking and the deepening crisis over Korea. Trump wondered aloud about the point of having nuclear weapons if he couldn’t use them."

"Acting like a hegemon, the United States, starting in 1999, took advantage of Russian weakness and broke its promise not to expand NATO, eventually adding 13 countries, the last of which was Montenegro, in 2017. When Bush announced plans to incorporate Georgia and Ukraine, Putin drew the line. Following the US-backed Ukrainian coup, he took back Crimea and made clear that there are limits to his toleration of NATO expansion..."

"But now, in March 2018, Putin was declaring that the US effort had failed. He unveiled the existence of five new nuclear weapons, all of which could circumvent US missile-defense systems. He concluded defiantly, "I hope everything that has been said today will sober any potential aggressor," adding, "No one listened to us. Listen to us now.""

"In the movie the main speaker – heavyweight Ukrainian politician, opposition leader –Viktor Medvedchuk is being interviewed by the renowned filmmaker Oliver Stone... also sat with Russian president Vladimir Putin to ask him a questions about Ukrainian crisis. They share their thoughts on the reasons for the conflict and ways to solve it. The audience will be guided through a behind the stages of the real “games of power” in a way that they can’t see in any mainstream mass media."

"Oliver Stone, an American writer and an Oscar winning filmmaker will present his documentary about Ukraine [Revealing Ukraine] at the 65th Taormina Film Festival... in Sicily on June 30 - July 6. ... The documentary... reveals the details of the 2014 uprising in Ukraine, discloses the connection between interference to the recent presidential elections in the U.S. and Ukraine, casts the light into the current situation with the conflict in Donbas."

"Former president Jimmy Carter recently made a profound and damning statement — the United States is the "most warlike nation in the history of the world." Carter contrasted the United States with China, saying that China is building high-speed trains for its people while the United States is putting all of its resources into mass destruction. Where are high-speed trains in the United States, Carter appropriately wondered."

"As if to prove Carter’s assertion, Vice President Mike Pence told the most recent graduating class at West Point that it "is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life... You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen." Clearly referring to Venezuela, Pence continued, "Some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere." In other words, Pence declared, war is inevitable, a certainty for this country."

"[On his documentary JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass (2021)] As one of our interviewers, David Talbot, says in the film, once you kill a sitting president in high noon in Dealey Plaza and blow his head off, you're not going to go back to normal and say, "Oh, wow! We found this whacky--this crazy lone nut who killed him." It doesn't work. It doesn't really work as a narrative for this country. What happened was much deeper than that, and there was so many inconsistencies, so many holes in the Warren Commission... The point is that you cannot remove legitimacy from government like that and get away with it, and the people knew something was wrong. They didn't know exactly what was wrong, but they sensed that something had gone astray, like anarchy has set in. Some method of control was being exerted because forces that were more powerful than one person were able to kill him, forces that were somewhat, I mean, clearly related to intelligence agencies, to possible military agencies, and these forces came to dominate American life..."

"After Kennedy was killed, and nobody asked... what was Kennedy's real policy on Vietnam? Well... he was going to pull out of Vietnam. He was very clear about it, and that's what people get confused. Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, who took over the office went right to war quickly. He went to a far more aggressive posture of Vietnam, which resulted in more-- It was a lie, another lie, and that war was a disaster... Unfortunately, the same forces that made that war happen continued in our life, and they controlled us and pushed us into another war and another war and another war... we propagandize an enemy, make him far bigger than he is, and I don't know what we're fighting."

"There's been a campaign, a war against Russia going on for a long time. It started again in the United States around 2006... there's no evidence really of the aggressiveness of Russia. The aggressiveness is truly coming from the NATO forces that have encircled Russia and that are also, by the way, encircling China. You know, this is a big policy point, huge, of huge importance... we have to have people in the United States who speak up for the peace point of view... Let's get along with China. Let's get along with Russia, Iran, and so forth. We have to change our point of view because we are seeking to still be the only power in the world that is in control of the world. We cannot continue on this path; it's a suicidal path. And I think many Americans agree with me, but it's never been allowed to be stated politically. People who say this type of stuff never win elections because they're ridiculed or marginalized in the press, to be honest."

"The Warren commission (into Kennedy’s assassination) was a sham. They (meaning the intelligence agencies) appointed it. Lyndon Johnson basically didn't want problems because he says he feared war with Russia over Cuba. That was his excuse. But if he’d really looked at the case, if he had had proper intelligence agencies working with him, he (would have known) that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with this assassination. Robert Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy wrote to (Russian president) Khrushchev saying, "We know it’s not you; we know it’s a right-wing plot from our own country." And that's what it was."

"He [JKF] is one of the most important presidents because he was for peace at a time when we were on the brink of war. In 1960, when he ran, the Pentagon was ready to take out Russia on the first strike. This was what their thinking was: "We gotta nail these bastards now" ... That was their Dr Strangelove thinking. Johnson put us right back smack into the middle of the biggest war we'd ever had since WWII and it was a disaster, as you know. A debacle."

"Putin is a great leader for his country and the people love him."

"Movie critics have complained that the movie lacks coherent vision. The fault may not be Stone's. We know what Alexander] did, and it continues to astonish us, but we don't know how or why he did it... Stone suggests some noble purpose for Alexander's mad, bloody tromp across Asia. He and his historical consultant shared a need to give meaning to a meaningless conquest."

"In their ten-part cable television documentary series and seven-hundred-page companion book The Untold History of the United States, filmmaker Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick ask: "Why does our country have military bases in every region of the globe, totaling more than a thousand by some counts? Why does the United States spend as much money on its military as the rest of the world combined? Why does it still possess thousands of nuclear weapons, many on hair-trigger alert, even though no nation poses an imminent threat?" These are key questions. Stone and Kuznick condemn the situation but do not answer the questions. The authors see the post-World War II development of the United States into the world's sole superpower as a sharp divergence from the founders' original intent and historical development prior to the mid-twentieth century. They quote an Independence Day speech by President John Quincy Adams in which he condemned British colonialism and claimed that the United States "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy." Stone and Kuznick fail to mention that the United States at the time was invading, subjecting, colonizing, and removing the Indigenous farmers from their land, as it had since its founding and as it would through the nineteenth century. In ignoring that fundamental basis for US development as an imperialist power, they do not see that overseas empire was the logical outcome of the course the United States chose at its founding."

"Animal rights acitivists always say to me, "How could you kill a chicken for a movie?" Well, I eat chicken and I know the chicken didn't land on my plate from a heart attack. We bought the chicken from a farmer who advertised freshly killed chicken. I think we made the chicken's life better. It got to be in a movie, it got fucked, and then right after filming the next take, the cast ate the chicken!"

"Wouldn't you rather your kid be a drug dealer than a drug addict?"

"To me, camp is two older queens talking about Rita Hayworth under a Tiffany's lampshade."

"I've always tried to push things to the limit, but when I started, the censors to be feared were old, conservative, religious men, whereas today the censors are young, rich, liberal men who seem to be against the freedom of expression I fought for. [...] people should be able to have an opinion they don't agree with and still be friends, have a dialogue, or argue about it."

"We're husky, we're hairy, we're homosexual, and out of the second closet."

"And we can cuddle all night!"

"To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. If someone vomits while watching one of my films, it's like getting a standing ovation. But one must remember that there is such a thing as good bad taste and bad bad taste."

"To understand bad taste one must have very good taste."

"I would never want to film hard-core pornography, because it always looks like open-heart surgery to me."

"[I] pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value."

""How could you think of such awful things?" liberal critics always ask. "How else could I possibly amuse myself?" I always wonder."

"Life is nothing without a good sense of humor."

"I'll never be able to do a sequel to Pink Flamingos because it would have to end with Divine taking a shit and the dog eating it."

"Parents should worry if their children haven't been arrested by the time they turn sixteen. Being a juvenile delinquent is a birthright and as much a part of healthy adolescence as smoking cigarettes or getting pimples."

"I'd never trust anyone who hadn't spent at least one night of his youth in the local jail. The more hell you raise as a teen-ager, the sweeter your memories will be."

"I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore... It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay. No one moves here."

"I stopped taking drugs when I realized that pot smelled bad and LSD trips were becoming like TV reruns. I had had enough inner journeys &mdash; I felt I knew myself well enough, thank you."

"All people look better under arrest."

"Going to a sensational murder trial is the only way I can relax."

"Cheer up. You never know &mdash; maybe something awful will happen tomorrow."

"If you go home with someone and they don't have books, don't fuck them."

"We watched everything...A family favorite was Cry-Baby starring Johnny Depp. Whenever the John Waters film broke out in song, we would all scream and start singing, too."

"Waters might, once upon a time, have been a candidate to be the American Buñuel, especially when he had the raw hatred of Divine under his command..."

"If you did not suffer from emotions, from feelings, you could be as powerful as we are."

"You have to be taught to leave us alone. Leave us alone."

"I had a screenplay once where I was 90 pages in and I knew it was all over. I knew it was a disaster. And it was driving me crazy because the studio had gone down a path with me, so there was no getting out and I didn’t know how to go past these 90 pages. And then it all worked out&mdash;and the change which made it from absolute despair that there was no way to save it to it all working out was minute. But, but key. INTERVIEWER: Which screenplay was that? JAMES L. BROOKS: Uh, it was Terms of Endearment."

"There was a great director who directed a picture that I wrote who barred me from the set&mdash;quite appropriately&mdash;and said, “I’m sorry, Jim. When you’re directing, you don’t need to know everything. You need the illusion that you do.” And, you know, and I WOULD be there&mdash;behind him trying to signal the actors in, you know, in a way I wasn’t even aware of."

"Now the sun touched the horizon and the man reined in his horse tiredly, glad that the time for prayer had come."

"Changi became my university instead of my prison. … Among the inmates there were experts in all walks of life — the high and the low roads. I studied and absorbed everything I could from physics to counterfeiting, but most of all I learned the art of surviving."

"I can transport matter — anything — at the speed of light, perfectly. Of course this is only a crude beginning, but I've stumbled on the most important discovery since man sawed off the end of a tree trunk and found the wheel. The disintegrator-integrator will change life as we know it. Think what it means. Anything, even humans, will go through one of these devices. No need for cars or railways or airplanes, even spaceships. We'll set up matter-receiving stations throughout the world, and later the universe. There'll never be famine. Surpluses can be sent instantaneously at almost no cost, anywhere. Humanity need never want or fear again. I'm a very fortunate man, Hélène."

"God gives us intelligence to uncover the wonders of nature. Without the gift, nothing is possible."

"I get so scared sometimes. The suddenness of our age! Electronics, rockets, earth satellites, supersonic flight, and now this. It's not so much who invents them. It's the fact they exist. … Everything's going so fast, I'm just not ready to take it all in. It's, it's all so quick"

"The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox."

"The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world — and the most dangerous."

"Help! Help me! Please help me! Help me!"

"For Those Who Were There And Are Not. For Those Who Were There And Are For Him. But Most, For Her."

"Changi was set like a pearl on the eastern tip of Singapore Island, iridescent under the bowl of tropical skies. It stood on a slight rise and around it was a belt of green, and farther off the green gave way to the blue-green seas and the seas to infinity of horizon. Closer, Changi lost its beauty and became what it was — an obscene forbidding prison. Cellblocks surrounded by sun-baked courtyards surrounded by towering walls. Inside the walls, inside the cellblocks, story on story, were cells for two thousand prisoners at capacity. Now, in the cells and in the passageways and in every nook and cranny lived some eight thousand men. ... These men too were criminals. Their crime was vast. They had lost a war. And they had lived."

"I'm going to get that bloody bastard if I die in the attempt."

"Grey was not alone in his hatred. The whole of Changi hated King. They hated him for his muscular body, the clear glow in his blue eyes. In the twilight world of the half alive there were no fat or well-built or round or smooth or fair-built or thick-built men. There were only faces dominated by eyes and set on bodies that were skin over sinews and bones. No difference between them but age and face and height. And in all this world, only the King ate like a man, smoked like a man, slept like a man, dreamed like a man and looked like a man."

"When you have an enemy it is wise to know his ways. The King knew as much about Grey as any man could know about another."

"All his life he had heard legends told among pilots and sailormen about the incredible riches of Portugal's secret empire in the East, how they had by now converted the heathens to Catholicism and so held them in bondage, where gold was as cheap as pig iron, and emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and sapphires as plentiful as pebbles on a beach. If the Catholic part's true, he told himself, perhaps the rest is too."

"To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever-increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline — training — is about."

"There are no "mitigating circumstances" when it comes to rebellion against a sovereign lord."

"What are clouds, but an excuse for the sky? What is life, but an escape from death?"

"First she studied her husband's flower arrangement. He had chosen the blossom of a single white wild rose and put a single pearl of water on the green leaf, and set it on red stones. Autumn is coming, he was suggesting with the flower, talking through the flower, do not weep for the time of fall, the time of dying when the earth begins to sleep; enjoy the time of beginning again and experience the glorious cool of the autumn air on this summer evening...soon the tear will vanish and the rose, only the stones will remain — soon you and I will vanish and only the stones will remain."

"Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life."

"So much wealth and so much power, Armstrong thought, yet with a little luck, we can bring you down like Humpty-Dumpty..."

"Changi changed everyone, changed values permanently. For instance, it gave you a dullness about death — we saw too much of it to have the same sort of meaning to outsiders, to normal people. We are a generation of dinosaurs, we the few who survived. I suppose anyone who goes to war, any war, sees life with different eyes if they end up in one piece." What did you see?" "A lot of bull that's worshipped as the be-all and end-all of existence. So much of 'normal, civilized' life is bull that you can't imagine. … What frightens you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at."

"Just a moment, children — what does "pledge" mean?"

"Your old teacher never explained anything to you? I don't think that was very good. Not to explain. You can always ask me anything. That's what a real teacher should do."

"It is a very pretty flag. … I wish I could have a piece of it. I know! If it's so important, I think we should all have a piece of it. Don't you? … Now we should decide — who should be allowed to cut the first piece off!"

"I want a star!"

"Your daddy had to go back to school a little. He had some strange thoughts — and he wanted other grown-ups to believe them. It's not right for others to believe wrong thoughts, is it?"

"Perhaps my mommy should go back to school. Perhaps she should."

"God bless mommy and daddy, and please can we have some candy."

"Maybe we didn't pray hard enough. Perhaps we should kneel down like is done in church. Perhaps were using the wrong name. Instead of God, let's say "Our Leader." Let's pray to our leader for candy! Let's pray extra specially hard, and don't open your eyes until I say."

"I'm going to pray to our leader every time!"

"I put the candy on the desk. So you know, it doesn't matter who you shut your eyes and pray to — to God, or anyone, even our leader — no one will ever give you anything. Only another human being … only I, or someone like me, can give you things. Praying to God or anyone for something is a waste of time."

"Because Johnny was especially clever I think we should make him monitor for the whole week. Don't you?"

"I'm going to work hard not to have any wrong thoughts!"

"I asked all kinds of people of every age, "You know the 'I pledge allegiance…'" but before I could finish, at once they would all parrot it, the words almost always equally blurred. In every case discovered that not one teacher, ever — or anyone — had ever explained the words to any one of them. Everyone just had to learn it to say it. The Children's Story came into being that day. It was then that I realized how completely vulnerable my child's mind was — any mind for that matter — under controlled circumstances. Normally I write and rewrite and re-rewrite, but this story came quickly — almost by itself. Barely three words were changed. It pleases me greatly because it keeps asking me questions … Questions like what's the use of "I pledge allegiance" without understanding? Like why is it so easy to divert thoughts and implant others? Like what is freedom and why is it so hard to explain? The Children's Story keeps asking me all sorts of questions I cannot answer. Perhaps you can — then your children will…"

"I was a teenager when that [referring to WW2] started and of course wars are fought by teenagers. Do you realize that? They really should be fought by the politicians and the old people who start these wars."

"Changi for me — of course it's easy to be wise after the event, and to discuss it cleverly after the event — was about as near as you can get to being dead and still be alive."

"I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one. … In return for picking up one of my books, I'm trying to give them value for their money. … the goal of writing any book is to create the illusion that what you are reading is reality and you're part of it."

"All stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, and if they're any good, the ending is a beginning."

"one of my favorite books-and I emphasize the word book here because I'm not talking about the movie-is The Godfather...Oh, yes, a book like Shogun."

"Although historians sometimes disputed the historical accuracy of Mr. Clavell's novels, no one doubted his gifts as a storyteller, or his ability to draw the reader into a faraway time and place."

"Shogun is irresistible… I can't remember when a novel has seized my mind like this one… It's almost impossible not to continue to read Shogun once having opened it. Yet it is not only something that you read — you live it … possessed by the Englishman Blackthorne, the Japanese lord Toranaga and medieval Japan … People, customs, settings, needs and desires all become so enveloping you forget who and where you are."

"If you're going to be a whore, be a high-priced whore."

"The good thing about being a hypocrite is that you get to keep your values."

"My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six."

"… life is meaningless unless you bring meaning to it; … it is up to us to create our own existence. Unless you do something, unless you make something it's as though you aren't there."

"You don't put statistics on trial, you put individuals on trial."

"One of the most basic things I've tried to do is give people a greater understanding of how science works - the importance of evidence, the importance of many trials, of rigorous studies, and the idea that we learn only a little bit at a time. . . . Making people aware of that process helps increase appreciation and respect for science, and that helps us make informed decisions for our families and ourselves."

"I have a final word of advice to our students. If you work very, very hard, this is the kind of actor, writer and director you may turn out to be, and if you work extra hard, this is the kind of person you may turn out to be."

"Screen credit is valuable only when it's given you. If you're in a position to give yourself credit, you don't need it."

"Nothing is unfair in politics"

"In fact, gory horror movies don't rank on the [list of] movies that I like. Good horror movies are great, but I just like good movies. I don't just watch grade Z garbage. That bores me to death."

"Dig through the ditches, and burn through the witches, I slam in the back of my Dragula."

"With every experience in life, you have two choices: One, you can choose to enjoy and learn from the encounter, even if it is something you don't like. Two, you can struggle through the experience, blaming everyone and everything else around you the entire time. What if you were to view any unfavorable experience in a new way? What if you simply accepted the experience as momentary and learned what you could from it? Think how peaceful that experience would become."

"Your needs are your choice. Because they are your choice, this means you are not bound by them. You can choose to change your needs."

"How many times have you become very anxious when forced to wait? There are a million things to see. There are a million beautiful sounds to hear. Open your eyes, see--as if for the first time. Find peace in moments of waiting, and you will witness that all life can be perfectly beautiful."

"Desire is the base of all disharmony in this world."

"Although all human beings experience desires, all are not controlled by them. Those who are not controlled by desire maintain balance in their lives and can thereby attain higher levels of understanding."

"Spiritual mastery is never easy. It takes much more time and personal application than physical development does. Spirtual mastery, however, is the path we are all on. Some of us simply do not choose to believe it."

"I always loved how people like Jon Voight and Laurence Olivier shocked you every time they came on-screen. They were so different each time. That's what I hope to do with acting &mdash; be the chameleon and not get stuck in a type."

"I tend to gravitate toward the more powerful roles. As opposed to the doe-eyed girl who bats her eyelashes and runs around in towels, you now what I mean? Because that kind of makes me want to vomit.""

"I really like Shakespeare a lot. The characters that he writes for females, I think, are really great and a lot more compelling than what modern writers write, which is weird because they didn't have actresses then."

"Playing Paula in The Business of Strangers was extremely cathartic and wonderful for me because Patrick Stettner (the director) constantly encouraged me to be un-self aware. The character is very elusive and bold, but my experience of having people confuse bluntness with bitchiness has made me shy away from it, or it has made me too aware of the reactions I get from people. So Patrick undid all that by telling me to ignore what the response might be to Paula. It was almost like being a kid again, and it was a very empowering feeling."

"I definitely worry about that. I think about it all the time because that's the way Hollywood thinks. It's all about momentum and keeping your name out there, and college certainly takes you away from that. But, if I look at it in the longer term, it's so worthwhile."

"The way Miramax handled it was B.S. There were a lot of crossing political agendas going on, and the reasons in the press weren't entirely true. It was like 'Are we seeing the same movie here?' I've always thought it's better to get people talking about the issue of school violence as opposed to trying to pretend it didn't happen."

"Being an actor is looked at like a prolonged game of dress-up. America puts movie stars on pedestals. In college, it's the flip side. I sometimes have to justify my job to my professors because they're focused on intellect and ideas."

"She's not your typical cheesecake pinup girl. She's beautiful and talented and has the mouth of a truck driver when necessary."

"I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried — tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out."

"I've repeatedly said that for people as little in common as Joanne and myself, we have an uncommonly good marriage. We are actors, we make pictures — and that's about all we have in common. Maybe that's enough. Wives shouldn't feel obligated to accompany their husbands to a ball game, husbands do look a bit silly attending morning coffee breaks with the neighbourhood wives when most men are out at work. Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends — and not impose one upon the other."

"I was terrorized by the emotional requirements of being an actor. Acting is like letting your pants down; you're exposed."

"I wasn't driven to acting by any inner compulsion. I was running away from the sporting goods business."

"Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experiences."

"I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood."

"The first time I remember women reacting to me was when we were filming Hud in Texas. Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it's flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they're mixing me up with the roles I play — characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am."

"I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?"

"I've been accused of being aloof. I'm not. I'm just wary."

"I had no natural gift to be anything — not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches — not anything. So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me."

"Building weapons that we don’t need, don’t work, and aren’t necessary, and have no mission — that’s not bad politics, that’s robbery."

"This is not a celebrity issue. This is a political issue and the concept that a person who has a lot holds his hand out to someone who has less, or someone who isn't hurting holds his hand out to someone who is, is simply a human trait that has nothing to do with celebrity. I am confounded at the stinginess of some institutions and some people. I'm bewildered by it. You can only put away so much stuff in your closet. In 1987, the average CEO against someone who was working in his factory was 70 times. It's now 410 times. If you eliminate the middle class, which we are slowly doing, incidentally, Aristotle said the greatest government is the government that has the least number of people on each end. It makes sense. So, I don't think that there's anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It's the other attitude that confuses me."

"To that extent that you can sustain and maintain that childlike part of your personality is probably the best part of acting."

"I cannot bear to look at a film that I made before 1990. Maybe 1985. There's no sense even trying to explain it. I really just can't watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts, so I don't look at anything."

"Just when things look darkest, they go black."

"When I realized I was going to have to be a whore, to put my face on the label, I decided that the only way I could do it was to give away all the money we make. Over the years, that ethical stance has given us a 30 per cent boost. One in three customers buys my products because all the profits go to good causes and the rest buy the stuff because it is good."

"It's all been a bad joke that just ran out of control. I got into food for fun but the business got a mind of its own. Now — my good Lord — look where it has gotten me. My products are on supermarket shelves, in cinemas, in the theater. And they say show business is odd."

"I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking."

"I'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting mouldy enough to be interesting."

"Being on President Nixon's enemies list was the highest single honor I've ever received. Who knows who's listening to me now and what government list I'm on?"

"I never ask my wife about my flaws. Instead I try to get her to ignore them and concentrate on my sense of humor. You don't want any woman to look under the carpet because there's lots of flaws underneath. Joanne believes my character in a film we did together, "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge" comes closest to who I really am. I personally don't think there's one character who comes close... but I learned a long time ago not to disagree on things that I don't have a solid opinion about."

"Study your craft and know who you are and what's special about you. Find out what everyone does on a film set, ask questions and listen. Make sure you live life, which means don't do things where you court celebrity, and give something positive back to our society."

"I started my career giving a clinic in bad acting in the film, "The Silver Chalice," and now I'm playing a crusty old man who's an animated automobile [in "Cars"]. That's a creative arc for you, isn't it?"

"You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: "Holy Christ, whaddya know — I'm still around!" It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career."

"It's like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents and you say, "I am terribly sorry. I'm tired.""

"People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked."

"To be an actor, you have to be a child."

"Men experience many passions in a lifetime. One passion drives away the one before it."

"Money won is twice as sweet as money earned."

"A man with no enemies is a man with no character."

"Twenty-five years ago I couldn't walk down the street without being recognized. Now I can put a cap on, walk anywhere and no one pays me any attention. They don't ask me about my movies and they don't ask me about my salad dressing because they don't know who I am. Am I happy about this? You bet."

"The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films."

"He makes it look so easy, and he looks so wonderful, that everybody assumes he isn't acting."

"He is the most private man I've ever known. He has a moat and a drawbridge which he lets down only occasionally."

"He has the attention span of a bolt of lightning."

"He has a good character, and not many people do. I think he would rather not do anything wrong, whether on a moral or an artistic level. He is what you would call a man of conscience — not necessarily of judgment, but of conscience. I don't know any actors like that."

"Paul likes to test himself. That's what makes Paul run. He's got a lot of courage, a highly underrated element in people's lives these days."

"I'll break down a lesson Step by step Like a booklet for you to sweat And try to apply To make yourself fly"

"I make beats like surgeons resume To stitch up your wounds Inside the emergency room They must work urgently or you'll permanently be in a tomb You see in the clergy soon I enjoy physical intimacy with young men"

"I'm not the youngest person at the table anymore. I'm not the young precocious one. I feel like I'm engaging with people in a different way now. I am a woman. I'm treated with respect, as an equal."

"He hit it in the entire performance [in Batman]. It's so difficult to do that in a huge movie like this and much easier to do in the tiny movies. That's why those are always the people who win Academy Awards. Heath was [amazing]; it's so unusual, and it happens really rarely even for the best actors, that you just hit this stride in a role and you're totally free."

"I feel it's OK if not everybody agrees with me or likes me. The weird thing was it turned into people thinking I said we deserved it. I didn't say that - but Americans do need to look at their behavior in the world. It's easy to say, "That was awful," and hard to ask, "Is there a way I can amend?""

"The truth is nobody finances tiny movies anymore. I mean there are so many movies I like that I hope will get their money together. It's a different world than it was when I first started making independent movies. Something is really wrong right now. I was a part of it and things are so different now. You can't make a movie for three million dollars with a kind of known actor. It's impossible. I think in general it has to do with the financial state of the country. It's tough for everybody in every business, but the independent movies have really suffered I think…they would never have made Secretary. They never would have financed Secretary with an unknown actress and James Spader. There's just no way."

"When I first saw it the first time, when I first saw him I felt... I felt upset. He's so good in the movie. He's incredible in it. It's so difficult to talk about. It's not an easy thing to sum up. I think he's great. Being around someone, acting with someone like that, is really inspiring and fun. It's very difficult to talk about. This isn't really the place where you open your heart up."

"Although it takes place in Gotham City and fundamentally it is a movie about Batman, Chris wanted us to play everything for truth. The actors he chose for this movie are into realism."

"The older we get the less afraid we are."

"I would like to grow less afraid of dying. I am infinitely less afraid today than I was 15 or 25 years ago. I was most afraid of dying when I was 33, because I come from a Catholic family."

"If you are anxious about death, then you don't have a sense of the oneness of things—you feel that after death, you will be no more."

"When you’re addressing power, don’t expect it to crumble willingly. If you’re going to say, "Hey now, look you guys, please look at what you did and look at yourselves and punish yourselves and at least try to square this thing, right?"— well, you’ll make slower progress at that than you would expect. I mean, even the most modest expectations are going to be unfulfilled. Think about it. Today there are still people all over the world who maintain that the Holocaust didn’t happen. There are people in the United States — people among that power echelon we speak of — who maintain that all slaves were happy. There are those power symbols that always say, "Well, it was for the good of the states. It was for the cohesion of the political process." There are myriad justifications for denial. There are also people who say, "Hey, after thirty years of affirmative action, they’ve got it made. Black people — it’s their own fault if they can’t make it today." Yeah, well, of course they say that. And they say it not just about black people. They say it in every country. We did something for you people, whoever "you" are. And we think that’s quite enough now. That’s the gist of it: we’ve done something, and we think it’s enough. It may not be perfect, but it damn sure comes close to being okay. Now let us hear you applaud that for a little while. And thank us. And you can take that hat off your head when you come in here thanking us. That’s the way it is. But let’s not get stuck there. We have miles to go before we sleep. We have lots to do, and some things just aren’t going to get done, you know?"

"A lot of black leaders, along with a lot of sympathetic white people, would say it’s too early in this country for forgiveness. We haven’t dealt with accountability yet, admission of guilt yet. And we certainly don’t have equality yet. But among the things that we must try to get done is the nurturing of a civilized, fair, principled, humane society. Now, if a part of that nurturing — part of the movement toward it, some of the efforts spent in that direction — would bring us to a new understanding, a new acceptance, even some forgiveness, what then? And not just forgiveness from the people who’ve been wronged. Forgiveness works two ways, in most instances. People have to forgive themselves too. The powerful have to forgive themselves for their behavior. That should be a sacred process."

"Compassion for other human beings has to extend to the society that’s been grinding the powerless under its heel. The more civilized the society becomes, the more humane it becomes; the more it can see its own humanity, the more it sees the ways in which its humanity has been behaving inhumanly. This injustice of the world inspires a rage so intense that to express it fully would require homicidal action; it’s self-destructive, destroy-the-world rage. Simply put, I’ve learned that I must find positive outlets for anger or it will destroy me. I have to try to find a way to channel that anger to the positive, and the highest positive is forgiveness."

"The great disease of mankind is ignorance. With knowledge you can grasp tight a belief: that you can be better, that the world can be better. With that, you can claim hope. Hope is the eternal tool in the survival kit for mankind. We hope for a little luck, we hope for a better tomorrow, we hope — although it is an impossible hope — to somehow get out of this world alive. And if we can't and don't, then it is enough to rejoice in our short time here and to remember how much we loved the view."

"The country is going through a crisis and I've been thrown up as this kind of public figure because I'm the top Negro writer in the country-whatever that means. It's like Sidney Poitier being America's only Negro movie star. That's the country's fault, not ours. But I'm still trying to speak just for me, not for twenty million people."

"let's face it, I am a Negro writer. Sidney Poitier, you know, is not simply an actor; he's a Negro actor. He's not simply a movie star; he's the only Negro movie star. And because he is in the position that he is in, he has obligations that Tony Curtis will never have. And it has made Sidney a remarkable man."

"[on being LGBT in show business] People in the business are equally as terrified now -- but I really find it a personal thing. And maybe I’m at the end of that era. I wouldn’t even want to stereotype today’s generation. But the majority of the casting departments are gay, and a lot of the executives are. I think it’s a matter of your abilities and how you carry yourself -- I don’t behave any differently toward you right now than when I am with David [Burtka, his boyfriend] in our apartment, watching "American Idol." OK, "So You Think You Can Dance." [Laughs] I can see why an agent wouldn’t want to sign on a real overtly effeminate male actor -- not because I have an aversion to them but because agents might know it limits their job opportunities."

"Playing gay in the theater is more fulfilling than on film because you can create a whole character and a backstory and you get to chip away at something over a long period of time. When you’re acting on film you sort of have one afternoon in front of a crew to just do it. And you don’t want to then be too overt and like that stereotype. But when I was doing A Paris Letter with Josh [Radnor], I was playing someone overtly flamboyant from the ’60s seducing him, and if I did that on film, I think it would look like I was acting too hard. It’s one of the fun things one wants to do as an actor, to play the flamboyant gay guy. But when you are gay that ends up being offensive to people. Say I was asked to play a flamboyant steward in an Airplane!–type farce. It would be a difficult decision to say yes to that role at this point because a lot of people would accuse me of making a mockery of gay people."

"My job is jester -- not advocate. I’m on a situation comedy responding to [Josh Radnor’s character] Ted Mosby and his wacky adventures -- that’s my job right now. If people want to comment about where I go to dinner, they are welcome to, but it’s not my job to respond to those statements. The Internet stuff threw me for a loop because I didn’t understand where the vitriol was coming from. I thought I had been representing well, and in turn it seemed like I was quickly condemned to step to the plate, and I was fine with that."

"I’m just really grateful and lucky that I get to keep existing in this business and existing by way of working as opposed to just being around the scene. So I love the process of making all of this. Being on set at the Sesame Workshop was one of the great things of last year for me. Getting just to work with Joss Whedon [on Dr.Horrible] for six days renegade-style was just unbelievable. Every week getting these new scripts and seeing what Barney Stinson gets to say and do is like a constant Christmas present. Things are swell."

"Here's what I know. I could not be standing here without that undying love that was just sung about by, not Bruce [Springsteen], but Neil Young. And I have that in a lover that is so close to fine, we should all be able to experience such heaven right here on earth. I know also that, I should not be doing this, I should not be here, but I am because of the union of such filmmakers as Ed Saxon, Ron Nyswaner, Kristi Zea, Tak Fujimoto, Jonathan Demme -- who seems to have these [referring to the Oscar] attached to his limbs for every actor that works with him of late. And a cast that includes Antonio Banderas, who, second to my lover, is the only person I would trade for. And a cast that includes many other people, but the actor who really put his film image at risk, and shone because of his integrity, Mr. Denzel Washington, who I really must share this with."

"I would not be standing here if it weren't for two very important men in my life, so... two that I haven't spoken with in awhile, but I had the pleasure of just the other evening. Mr. Rawley Farnsworth, who was my high school drama teacher, who taught me to act well the part, there all the glory lies. And one of my classmates under Mr. Farnsworth, Mr. John Gilkerson. I mention their names because they are two of the finest gay Americans, two wonderful men that I had the good fortune to be associated with, to fall under their inspiration at such a young age. I wish my babies could have the same sort of teacher, the same sort of friends."

"And there lies my dilemma here tonight. I know that my work in this case is magnified by the fact that the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels. We know their names. They number a thousand for each one of the red ribbons that we wear here tonight. They finally rest in the warm embrace of the gracious creator of us all. A healing embrace that cools their fevers, that clears their skin, and allows their eyes to see the simple, self-evident, common sense truth that is made manifest by the benevolent creator of us all and was written down on paper by wise men, tolerant men, in the city of Philadelphia two hundred years ago. God bless you all. God have mercy on us all. And God bless America."

"Thank you. I'm standing here in lieu of my fellow nominees who are just as deserving, if not more so of this moment."

"I'm standing here because of an army of people who over the course of a back-breaking schedule that was set by Bob Zemeckis worked much harder than I did and who had much more at risk if our efforts were not successful."

"I'm empowered to stand here thanks to the ensemble of actors, men and women, who I shared the screen with and who in ways they will never understand made me a better actor."

"And I am standing here because the woman I share my life with has taught me and demonstrates for me every day just what love is. [Voice breaks as wife Rita Wilson tearfully mouths 'I love you'.]"

"Man, I feel as though I'm standing on magic legs in a special effects process shot that is too unbelievable to imagine and far too costly to make a reality."

"But here is my mark, and there is where I'm supposed to look, and believe me, the power and the pleasure and the emotion of this moment is as constant as the speed of light. It will never be diminished, nor will my appreciation."

"And the meaning between two simple words that I can only offer you here: Thank you, God bless you in this room and God bless you all around the world."

"We live in a society where there is no law in making money in the promulgation of ignorance or, in some cases, stupidity. There are a lot of things you can say never happened. You can go as relatively quasi-harmless as saying no one went to the moon. But you also can say that the Holocaust never happened."

"Every day, every year, and for every graduating class, there is a choice to be made, the same option for all grown-ups to make: to be one of three types of Americans — those who embrace liberty for all, those who won’t, or those who are indifferent — and only the first do the work of creating a more perfect union."

"In the never-ending battle you have all officially joined as of today, the difference is in how truly you believe, in how vociferously you promote, in how tightly you hold onto the truth that is self-evident: that of course we are all created equally yet differently, and of course we are all in this together."

"We are all in a cage match, mixed martial arts battle royale with agents of intolerance and braying incompetence, the malevolent equals to Imperial stormtroopers, Lex Luther, and Loki. And we could use a superhero right now."

"The work that is called for is the construction of our ‘more perfect union. That job will never, ever be completed, one that requires rigorous attention and unfading wherewithal and all hands. The work is the keeping of the promises of our promised land, the practice of decency, the protection of freedom, and the promotion of liberty for all, with no exceptions. That takes a lot of work done on multiple job sites every single day, and you can call each of them a battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way."

"Another day on the set we were brought into the room where they replayed the dailies. While me and Bill were watching the monitor, Tom Hanks come up from behind and said, "Bill, Babe, don't turn around yet." When we did, he was dressed in an English officer's uniform. He said, "They gave me a cameo role. I'm going to be an English officer." I said, "Good, Tom, you could use the work." I told Tom Hanks he could use the work! I forgot he was Tom Hanks. He's such a regular guy. I'll tell you, I'd like to put a medal on him. Couldn't do enough for us. He kept telling people, "Take care of Bill and Babe. Take care of my boys from South Philly." Tom Hanks is top shelf."

"I believe in the vast potentialities of mankind. But I see everywhere a wide disparity between what they can be and what they are. That is what I want to say in writing. I want to say the genius of the human race is mongrelized; I want to find out how mankind can be helped out of the animal kingdom into the clear sweet air."

"Boychick, wake up! Be something! Make your life something good. For the love of an old man who sees in your young days his new life, for such love take the world in your two hands and make it like new. Go out and fight so life shouldn't be printed on dollar bills."

"Music is the great cheer-up in the language of all countries."

"...life is lonely, life is empty. Love isn't everything. A dear true friend is more than love--the serge outlasts the silk."

"The first documentary I saw as a child was Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) broadcast one Sunday afternoon. Nanook enchanted me by his courage to smile in a frozen wasteland, and by the simple fact that he wore a fur coat rather than a military uniform: this gentle hunter wasn’t a conqueror. Later, I understood how great Flaherty was: he told a timeless story without using commentary or pedagogues, and he didn’t interview Nanook like a celebrity or an aggressive talk-show host. He remained off-screen, observing and listening to create that exceptional complicity we feel in this documentary that eschews didacticism. The emotion of life found its counterpart in the emotion of art - a rare and precious achievement in a genre that is often limited to the emotion of the informational narrative."

"One of the key topics, for me, is a study of the individual in relation to crowds and to power. A film essay on crowd psychology would avoid commentary (it has become the madness of secondary discourse in many documentaries) and rely wholly on sound and image. Ideally, it would try to provide us with new concepts on the nature of society, on violence, and on the political bestiality of our times that is linked to the way the media has become a plague of words and images stripped of substance. It is a plague infecting our lives and, as a consequence, the history of nations with all that is sensational, random, and confused."

"Fellini was a hugely original spirit, a bona fide gagman, the king of contradiction, a well-oiled motor mouth -- in short, anything except a thinker. He needed the interviews and the media because it was during these seeming exercises in vanity that he discovered things about himself. If you pushed him hard enough, he would come up with ideas that surprised even him."

"With a few exceptions, Fellini's films have failure and despair running through them: Life continues, but I can't imagine 'Felliniesque' as an exclusively uplifting adjective. Fellini's best films are the ones that distill this essence -- the paradoxical quality of melancholic ecstasy, a surreal, bittersweet vitality -- to perfection."

"Fellini was a man of many selves and contradictions: he quoted Dante with genuine emotion while executing pornographic doodles on the table napkin then balked at paying the lunch bill while handing out millions of lire to the beggars of Rome. Although he boasted he was heterosexual, he nonetheless directed one of the greatest bisexual films of all time. He was Mr. Cool as well as the Nutty Professor. He contains multitudes and the journey to his center never ceases. Quite simply, you end up cherishing an Onion Man with no center. Federico really had a rough time of it but pretended otherwise and had the grace never to expose his personal problems in public. And then there are the films that continuously generate new meanings. For example, 8 1/2 contains alembicated allusions to Hamlet of tremendous power and beauty that resonate in the mind long after the film is over."

"Without once compromising his artistic integrity, Fellini imagined a body of work -- as opposed to a suite of spin-offs, remakes, potboilers and so on -- where each production can be ranked as among the finest of experimental films ever to reach and influence an international public. There is a breathtaking scope to that achievement and great courage in the process: surmounting unbelievable resistance from producers, enemies of all kinds and jealous colleagues, career reversals, and poor health, Fellini held true to his own vision of cinema forged in the smithy of his soul."

"Italo Calvino said the artist reveals that bit of truth hidden at the bottom of every lie. Art is all about the art of lying. The artist’s imperative is to create a supreme fiction, a lie that, paradoxically, discloses a truth. It's precisely this kind of paradox that Calvino and Fellini adored."

"I don’t like making didactic, pedagogical documentaries based on standard formulas of narration: I'm only interested in the ambitious French tradition of the documentaire de création where the film, if successful, is not about something but that something itself. The goal is to incorporate areas of risk and paradox that we associate with cinematic art."

"A filmmaker should never assume he's superior to his subject. I often find that even the simplest topic remains an enigma. The best film portraits not only evoke that enigma but ingest it in a process that renders what's invisible visible."

"In a synchronistic way, the Jungian term of great significance for Carolyn Carlson, her art is in accord with Hölderlin's phrase, "Poetically, man dwells on this earth." After the century of Fascism, we enter the brave new world of the digital era where bombs are grafted inside the body in a corruption of the word spiritual that Malraux never imagined. For Carlson, the question is no longer, "How to live together?" but rather, "How to live poetically our dwelling place?""

"The single greatest influence on my work as a filmmaker has been the celebrated Interviews with Francis Bacon (1980) by David Sylvester. Sylvester is a master of the art of complicity: he knows how to manipulate and exploit it. Complicity requires being cautiously intellectual yet profoundly human in the sense that the interviewer must act as the concerned midwife, allowing the interviewee to express himself while at the same time guiding his thoughts to a satisfactory conclusion through sensitive provocation."

"The filmed interview is an art extemporized under difficult conditions and successful only when the interviewee hasn't prepared his replies beforehand."

"Fellini has sometimes been accused of not being interested in the work of other directors but I never found this accusation to hold true. The Federico I knew was not only a voracious reader but extremely interested in hearing about international directors, most notably, Nanni Moretti, Pedro Almodovar, David Lynch, Spike Lee, Akira Kurosawa, David Cronenberg, Wim Wenders, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick. Clearly, part of the pleasure of discussing these directors was the stimulus for new ideas that their latest films gave him. Although we never explored Portuguese film in any depth, the films of Manoel de Oliveira and Joao César Monteiro genuinely fascinated Federico. At the urging of Mastroianni, he went to see A Divina Comédia (1991), Oliveira’s superb allegory about Western civilization, and returned enthralled. He had long been obsessed by the theme of insane asylums and Oliveira’s masterful blend of philosophy and religion appealed to him at a time in his life when such questions as death and resurrection had become pressing concerns. I do not know where or in what format Federico saw Monteiro’s Recordaçoes de Casa Amarela (1989) but it was a film he described as “deliriously eccentric, a satirical bizarrie that Bunuel would have adored"."

"To my delight, Federico had seen Dans la ville blanche (1983) by Swiss director Alain Tanner. Enthusiastic about Bruno Ganz’s performance, he also was impressed by the film’s startling visual poetry of Lisbon achieved by transferring inferior film stock onto 35mm. It was exactly this kind of uncomplicated technical innovation that inspired Federico during the writing of Attore. Conceived in 1992, Attore focused on the craft and the psychology of actors. Having completed a film treatment with roles for Mastroianni, Giulietta Masina, and Paolo Villagio, Fellini was now wondering if he should provide Marcello with a home movie camera to be used in a loosely Shakespearian sense that all the world’s a film set. The 8mm footage of intimate memories of the theatre from his Rimini childhood would then be transferred to 35mm – a most intriguing idea that would have been a new departure for the Maestro had he lived to bring it to the screen."

"It was Italian playwright and screenwriter Ennio Flaiano who first spoke to Fellini of Fernando Pessoa during their collaboration on I Vitelloni (1953). Fellini claimed, however, that it was not until he lunched with Anthony Burgess in the mid 1970s (when the British writer owned a country house in Bracciano north of Rome) that he began reading the Portuguese poet in earnest. This is not to suggest that Pessoa influenced Fellini in any direct way but simply to note a genial coincidence embedded within two autobiographical masterpieces. The first quotation is from Pessoa’s O Livro do desassossego: ‘These are my Confessions, and if in them I say nothing, it’s because I have nothing to say.’ The second is from Fellini’s Otto e mezzo (1963) during the crucial night scene at the base of the scaffolding when Guido confesses to Rosella, “I have really nothing to say in my film. But I want to say it anyway.” Suddenly, the disparate obsessions of these two great Mediterranean minds seem to fold into one another, if only for an instant, like the sounds of vibrating wires touched simultaneously. Whatever the ultimate significance may be, it amuses me to think that textual coincidences of this nature are proof of the brotherhood of artists."

"We lunched in Fregene: grilled sardines sprinkled with parsley and lemon. Federico ate daintily, like someone with no appetite. The beach was deserted, the wind brisk. In the distance stood the abandoned lighthouse he filmed for 8 1/2. Like someone about to propose a toast, he stood up and "recited" from King Lear :"

"Now began the part of her life where she was just very beautiful. Except for nothing. Only winners will know what this feels like. Have you ever wanted something very badly and then gotten it. Then you know that winning is many things, but it is never the thing you thought it would be."

"They wordlessly excused each other for not loving each other as much as they had planned. There were empty rooms in the house where they had meant to put their love and they worked together to fill these rooms with high-end, consumer-grade equipment. It was a tight situation. The next sudden move would have to be through the wall."

"It was a tiny sound but it woke me up because it was a human sound."

"That is my problem with life, I just rush through it, like I'm being chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking relaxing tea. When I drink relaxing tea I suck it down like I'm in a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest."

"I wanted to make the movie feel like life feels to me — and life feels both sad and dark and confusing and more than hopeful — it feels like something totally incredible could happen at any moment and with no explanation."

"I think there’s something spiritual in a very day-to-day, mundane existence. It’s impossible to articulate, and it’s happening now, almost like a perverse secret. . . . That’s always sort of fascinating to me."

"I’m totally not kidding. … Life is too short. This is all too hard to do to actually be kidding about the whole thing."

"At this point, I’ve come to realize that where you are, the space you’re in, what you wear, this one body that you’re in for this life — those of course matter because you are really here, you’re not just an idea in your head. And there is something profound about noticing again and again that you’re here."

"I think, ultimately, my character comes to think that the desire for a shared dream, a shared fantasy, a shared world, was really an attempt at a recreation of a certain kind of childhood pain. Our relationships are built on our first experiences with our parents, so the idea that longing and fantasy and boundarylessness had been established then and didn’t quite function in an adult landscape was — I mean, it’s still quite slippery for me to talk about in this way, and in fiction I felt like I had a shot. You don’t have to be articulate, which I think is important — you can let characters be dumb and stumbling. That is what art can do that talking about art can’t."

"I pretended that I was pausing before telling him about the secret feeling of joy that I hide in my chest, waiting, waiting, waiting for someone to notice that I rise each morning seemingly with nothing to live for, but I do rise, and it is only because of this secret joy, God's love, in my chest. I looked down from the sky and into his eyes and I said, It wasn't your fault. I excused him for the cover and for everything else. For not yet being a New Man. We fell into silence then; he did not ask me any more questions. I was still happy to sit there beside him, but that is only because I have very, very low expectations of most people, and he had now become Most People."

"I pressed my lips against his ear and whispered, again, It's not your fault. Perhaps this was really the only thing I had ever wanted to say to anyone, and be told. I imagined couples at the altar, standing before the priest, declaring It's not your fault to each other, before kissing in the union."

"Common sense and the truth should feel authorless, writ by time itself. It is actually really hard to write something that will make a terminally ill person feel better. And Positive has rules, you can't just lift your guidance from the Bible or a book about Zen; they want original material. So far none of my submissions have gotten in, but I'm getting closer."

"Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise."

"Since I started making art, I’ve always had some kind of project that was really about and for other people, because I think I just need that balance to feel sane myself — you know?"

"I guess my favorite thing in the world is when I look at a piece of art, or read a story, or watch a movie where I walk away feeling like "Oh my god — I have to do something, I have to make something or talk to someone — things are not the same anymore" — and so I try to make work where you come away with that feeling. It's like, yeah, you're thinking about what you just saw, but even more than that — you feel able, you feel like, kind of propelled."

"No one's keeping track — no one's making of an archive of these "unimportant" things, you know… but now we have an archive … and in a way, the second there's many, it becomes proof of something, something that's so unspecific — that it's — that it's lively — to me that's really alive — that kind of half nauseous, half beautiful feeling."

"What I like best is the kind of complicated messed up truth, you know … the one that's so imperfect that you know it's true."

"July’s unnamed narrator is a married artist with a young child — not unlike the author herself — who has just turned 45 and plans to mark the occasion by traveling alone from her home in Los Angeles to New York, temporarily leaving the domestic space to conjure inspiration for her next project. Instead of flying, she decides to try to become someone who drives across the country. "This could be the turning point of my life," she reflects. "If I lived to be ninety I was halfway through. Or if you thought of it as two lives, then I was at the very start of my second life." The splitting of one life into two. Another binary. She doesn’t make it to New York. In a move that rejects the traditional arc of the hero’s journey, she never even leaves California. But transformation happens anyway."

"July’s film fits no genre, fulfills no expectations, creates its own rules and seeks only to share a strange, lovable mind with us."

"Unlike certain directors who fixate on marginalia, creating art in which the engraving on a character’s belt buckle takes precedence over the story, July’s seemingly superficial gestures service something greater: a pulsing emotional center. It’s odd that she has come to represent, for some, a kind of soulless hipster cool, because in July’s work, nobody is cool. There’s no irony to it, no insider wink. Her characters are ordinary people whose lives don’t normally invite investigation. So her project is the opposite of hipster exclusion: her work is desperate to bring people together, forcing them into a kind of fellow feeling. She’s unrelentingly sincere, and maybe that sincerity makes her difficult to bear. It also might make her culturally essential."

"The Future is really good, a film that’s not only tighter than the free-ranging Me and You but also more mature and tonally darker. (It’s literally darker, too: July shot it in a pastel-free palette of beiges and browns.) It may not convert all her critics, and it might shock some of her fans. But “The Future” should definitively dispel the lingering notion that her art is some gossamer, transient confection. The film is devoted to the only truths worth engaging, about love, sex and death, all questions unasked in the neutered, cutesy world of, say, Napoleon Dynamite and the like. “I do believe my work should be of service,” she told me. The Future is not just a rebuke to the idea that her work is somehow shallow; it actively attacks the idea of shallowness. July wants you to feel a part of something larger than yourself and, in The Future, you do."

"A recent profile in The New York Times Magazine depicted Ms. July — a quiet figure on the screen and a thoughtful, witty presence on the page — as an improbably polarizing filmmaker, as likely to be scorned for her supposed preciosity as celebrated for her ingenuity. And the first part of The Future seems, quite deliberately, to test the spectrum of audience response. Are you curious? Enchanted? Frustrated? All of the above?"

"The magical, metaphorical strain in The Future is what makes it powerful, unsettling and strange, as well as charming. The everyday fears and frustrations that shadow us on our awkward trip through the life cycle often feel enormous, even cosmic, and Ms. July has the audacity to find images and situations that give form to those metaphysical inklings. … The complexity of “The Future” is contained in its title, which refers simultaneously to a terrifying abstraction — an unknowable territory bounded by death, eternity, the end of time — and to a concrete, trivial fact. What are you going to do next? It’s a huge, scary question, but the answer is usually to be small and specific. Use your imagination. Go see this movie."

"I have invented nothing. I have simply documented a magical alchemy that I want to share."

"I spent all my time at school in the library. Bad teachers can teach you to learn on your own."

"The whales do not sing because they have an answer. They sing because they have a song."

"The stars you see at night are the unblinking eyes of sleeping elephants, who sleep with one eye open to best keep watch over us."

"If you look at Paleolithic cave paintings, you see how people were depicted inside nature, not outside it. It was a kind of dream time. That’s what I’m exploring."

"In the next 25 years, the human race will have to decide whether or not to preserve the bestiary of Nature’s living masterpieces. Ashes and Snow is not meant to tell people to do some things and not to do other things. It’s meant to inspire. I hope it’s not a requiem."

"In exploring the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals, I am working toward rediscovering the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony with animals. The images depict a world that is without beginning or end, here or there, past or present. I hope that the overall effect is an experience of wonder and contemplation, serenity and hope."

"Nous avons besoin de renégocier notre contrat avec la nature. L'écologie est une force d'union qui peut diminuer l'intolerance et augmenter notre empathie envers les autres—avec les humains comme avec les animaux."

"We need to renegotiate our contract with nature. Ecology is a unifying force that can diminish intolerance and expand our empathy towards others—both human and animal."

"He has realised a vision with an eloquent message, delivered without commentary or caption: if we didn't know before what we are obliterating, we do now."

"Colbert’s work feels timeless and sacred. It resonates with a luminous, essential wisdom speaking through the ages. . . . Colbert’s work operates in a parallel universe to ours, an earnest, refreshing, post-ironic world where pure wonder and awe still reside."

"Until now Gregory Colbert has been that rare artist who goes out of his way not to be noticed. He was represented by no gallery, he held no exhibitions for a decade, and he gave no interviews. He was in a sense a secret artist, though the secret was shared by a small group of wealthy private collectors who, through acquisitions and sheer enthusiasm, helped to finance his work. He needed this help. In his quest to photograph the mystical relationship between humans and animals, he made 27 lengthy trips to distant corners of the world over nine years. He was usually accompanied by a support team, supplies and equipment. He even rented oceangoing vessels for months on end. In brief, it was both costly and complicated to produce images of great simplicity."

"Anybody who's ever been broken up with, or had their heart stepped on or ripped out of them; you question everything you've based your whole life on. It's like, is anything real? Cause nothing 's more real than that, and now it's gone."

"You find in life that there are different levels of being in love with someone, and maybe everyone doesn't find that undeniable, indescribable... I can't describe it, it's indescribable."

"To have ego means to believe in your own strength. And to also be open to other people's views. It is to be open, not closed. So, yes, my ego is big, but it's also very small in some areas. My ego is responsible for my doing what I do — bad or good."

"A person who's a bitch would seem to be mean for no reason. I'm not a mean person. Maybe I'm rude without being aware of it — that's possible."

"Secretary Madeleine Albright was a good friend of mine for the last 28 years. I am so sad about losing a good friend and a great woman in this fragile world of ours. May you rest in peace dear one..."

"The world needs more people like Madeleine, whose instinct was to connect with others and build on what we share, rather than destroy lives and cities, like what’s happening in Ukraine today. Madeleine became very close to Colin Powell, her successor as secretary of state, who died last October"

"“Doubt can motivate you, so don’t be afraid of it. Confidence and doubt are at two ends of the scale, and you need both. They balance each other out.”"

"I arrived in Hollywood without having my nose fixed, my teeth capped, or my name changed. That is very gratifying to me."

"While I was waiting for them I made a few more phone calls, one to Barbra Streisand, whom I haven't seen since my election. I met her in a restaurant during the campaign when she came up to me and said she had a young son and wanted to do something for peace. She gave a fund-raising event for me in her new house in Manhattan, did a show and radio spots for me, and even came out on the streets and campaigned with me. “Ya betta win,” she used to say. She was great, and I really feel indebted to her."

"In the heyday of Barbra Streisand, it's hard to remember that every Jewish teenage girl of my generation whose nose "looked Jewish" longed for another chance."

"Why the fuck don't you shut up and just sing?"

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talents, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new; an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking, is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto, "Anyone can cook". But I realize — only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more."

"No capes!!!"

"The Iron Giant (1999)"

"The Incredibles (2004)"

"Ratatouille (2007)"

"Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)"

"Tomorrowland (2015)"

"Incredibles 2 (2018)"

"Batteries Not Included (1987)"

"All the Sixties were complicated, you know. On the one hand it was funny too, you know; on the other hand it was cruel, you know. The communists are so cruel, because they impose one taste on everybody, on everything, and who doesn't comply with their teachings and with their ideology, is very soon labeled pervert, you know, or whatever they want you call it, or counterrevolutionary or whatever. And then the censorship itself, that's not the worst evil. The worst evil is — and that's the product of censorship — is the self-censorship, because that twists spines, that destroys my character because I have to think something else and say something else, I have to always control myself. I am stopping to being honest, I am becoming hypocrite — and that's what they wanted, they wanted everybody to feel guilty, they were, you know... And also they were absolutely brilliant in one way, you know: they knew how effective is not to punish somebody who is guilty; what Communist Party members could afford to do was mind-boggling: they could do practically anything they wanted — steal, you know, lie, whatever. What was important — that they punished if you're innocent, because that puts everybody, you know, puts fear in everybody."

"First of all, whoever didn't want to be a member of this association or the other association, was branded, you know, like a dangerous individualist, you know, infected by the Western decadence, you know. So everybody joined. And everything is controlled and everybody is a member of some committee, because then their watchdogs placed in the committees can control everything, what this person says or how this person think, you know. It was... [Sighs] it was just ridiculous."

"You know, you have to really decide where you want to live: if you want to live in the jungle or in the zoo. Because if you want the beauty, if you want freedom, the jungle is... that's your world. But you're in danger there, you have to live with snakes, sharks, tigers, skunks, you know, mosquitoes, es. You want to be safe, you have to live in the zoo. You are protected. You know, if you are a lamb, the tiger will not attack you. You know, you'll get a little bit something to eat every day; that's fine. You have to work hard, but you live behind the bars, and what's wonderful — you live there behind the bars and you dream about the beauty of the jungle. Now what happened was that the bars opened, and everybody runs after the dream. And suddenly, well, yeah, it's beautiful — yes, I am free to go wherever I want, do whatever I want, but where do I want to go? Oh, my God, and here is a tiger and here's a snake. Oh, oh, and people have a tendency to, you know, back. And you will be surprised how many people prefer to live in the zoo; they are not ready to pay for the freedom; they think that freedom should be, you know, for free, even for granted, which never is, never is."

"I tell you, in my opinion, the cornerstone of democracy is free press — that's the cornerstone. I'm convinced if the press... it was not possible, of course, but if the free press existed through this century, there wouldn't be Hitler there wouldn't Stalin, there wouldn't be all this incredible price people have to pay for their freedom, you know, because that's what they're always first after… newspapers, radio, television, everything like that."

"All those rumors about her being underweight are trash. She's gorgeous."

"There's an old saying in Hollywood: It's not the length of your film, it's how you use it."

"People like to define you through what they’ve seen you do … There are aspects of my personality, I guess, that come through on-screen, but I don’t sit around thinking, I’ve been a bumbling suitor all my life."

"When I didn’t have a family, I was much more of a workaholic … I still like to work, but I also want to be home with them. As you get older, you realize you need balance. If it’s not fun, what’s the point?"

"We covered "Hey Jude." My father panicked, misunderstanding the lyrics and thinking our lead singer was belting out "Hey, Jew" to a roomful of Holocaust survivors."

"I can't design a mask and say to someone else, "Just do it." It's partly because I'm a better sculptor than I am a drawer. Considering the amount of time it would take me to draw exactly what I want, I might as well sculpt it. I paint most of it too. It's incredibly time consuming so I end up turning down a lot of jobs I want to do."

"We have a ways to go in understanding the power of puppetry … Our problem is for too long we have thought of puppets being for children. … The appeal of puppetry to me is it's much more freeing for an artist … Puppetry is a completely controllable means to attack your characters in every possible way. The artist has the possibility to create a much larger landscape with puppetry. The human becomes more human in that sense. Another of the great things about puppetry is the ability to transform."

"I would never do something with just puppets. . . But I like the things puppets allow you to do. I had this puppet Dinah Donewell, and she had this hand puppet named Mr. Pleaser. He was her lap dog who was constantly under her skirt. Now if you did that with actors, people would be offended. But in this case, so what? It was a puppet with a puppet."

"I've never been a puppeteer, I conceive and I write and I design and I direct. And not just puppets. I direct actors, I direct dancers, I direct singers, I direct films. I also direct puppeteers. I'm really a theatre maker, but there's not a word for that."

"The first thing I do when I’m creating, either for stage or for cinema, is to find the ideograph of the story. Which is; the one, simple expression that can tell everything. And at the same time be recognizable for the audience. It’s like in old Japanese paintings — if you were to paint a bamboo forest, you should be able to find its essence with only three strokes."

"Limitations force you to find the essence of what you want to say, which is one of the most important things to know for an artist."

"Spider-Man is a genuine American myth with a dark, primal power … but it’s also got this great superhero, and — hey! — he can fly through the theater at 40 miles an hour. It’s got villains, it’s got skyscrapers, it’s colorful, it’s Manhattan. I knew it would be a challenge, but I saw the inherent theatricality in it, and I couldn’t resist."

"To me, where theater has it all over film is that it’s in the moment, it’s tactile, you feel it …You’re completely immersed in it — right here and right now."

"She painted what she painted because she had to, because she was passionate about it. She didn't care at all if people bought her paintings. As she said, she painted her reality. I find that I make as an artist the kind of choices that I have to be impassioned about. I'm not going to spend two years on a film or four years on an opera if I don't feel like I can put my own self into it. That doesn't mean it has to be about myself. That's a difference. Frida painted her own reality, her life. I'm a director and I paint many other people... Other people's realities. But I do have to invest in it."

"We always write stories of tragedies because that's how we reach our human depth. How we get to the other side of it. We look at the cruelty, the darkness and horrific events that happened in our life whether it be a miscarriage or a husband who is not faithful. Then you find this ability to transcend. And that is called the passion, like the passion of Christ. You could call this the passion of Frida Kahlo, in a way. When I talk about passion, and I'm not a religious person, but I absolutely am drawn and attracted to the power of religious art because it gets at that most extreme emotion of the human experience."

"I understood really the power of art to transform. I think transformation became the main word in my life. Transformation because you don't want to just put a mirror in front of people and say, here, look at yourself. What do you see? You want to have a skewed mirror. You want a mirror that says you didn't know you could see the back of your head. You didn't know that you could amount cubistic see almost all the same aspects at the same time. It allows human beings to step out of their lives and to revisit it and maybe find something different about it."

"I used to say that arts were talked about in the arts and leisure page. Now, why would it be arts and leisure? Why do we think that arts are leisure? Why isn't it arts and science or arts and the most important thing in your life? I think that art has become a big scarlet letter in our culture. It's a big "A." And it says, you are an elitist, you're effete, or whatever those things...do you know what I mean? It means you don't connect. And I don't believe that. I think we've patronized our audiences long enough. You can do things that would bring people to another place and still get someone on a very daily mundane moving level but you don't have to separate art from the masses."

"When I was 14 or 13 or 15 I went to Sri Lanka on the Experiment in International Living for a summer. I wanted to travel. And going outside of my own culture and traveling and seeing my own world from a foreign perspective is a big part of my life and who I am. That's what I was talking about earlier, is stepping outside of yourself and examining yourself with a different perspective is very important, and it's important to do as an artist for others."

"I read a lot of books that are, for lack of a better word, cross-cultural. I find movies and books that take me — transport me to another culture are the things that I'm most interested in, and always have been."

"Where I live is not necessarily in New York City. That's where my apartment is, but I live in Mexico, or I live in Indonesia. I live in Japan. I feel as comfortable in those other cultures, because, in a way, I'm always uncomfortable. I can't explain that, exactly, but I put myself into situations where I'm forced to do something, to create, to respond, to see differently."

"You know, we still hear the word "puppet" and we get this nauseating image of some kind of Muppet or something. Puppets really are the origin of theater. Even the shadow on the wall of Plato's cave was a puppet. The very first actor was some kind of hand creating some kind of animal."

"We can either be monsters or angels. We are able to be demons and angels, as that book says. We are able to be incredibly creative or to be incredibly destructive. We have that decision to make, to create something. It could be grotesque and ugly, but it is monstrously beautiful, so it inspires people."

"I received from my experience in Japan an incredible sense of respect for the art of creating, not just the creative product. We're all about the product. To me, the process was also an incredibly important aspect of the total form."

"I really do believe that if you don't challenge yourself and risk failing, that it's not interesting."

"Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry. … A lot of what I do in theater is cinematic, and a lot of what I do in film is theatrical, but there are different rules to it. … each art form makes me more interested in the other art form because I try and bring in those techniques and those ideas and put them into a different way of using them."

"I'm not religious, but I believe in the ecstasy that art and religion can create in human beings, the ecstatic or the awe — as I like to call it, you know, "a-w-e" — that it makes people feel in a way that isn't their banal, everyday feel. That they go, "My God, it transformed me. My life changed.""

"The concrete world isn't necessarily the most powerful world. The world of the mind — whether you're watching Matrix or whatever — the world that's inside here has the power to do a lot of good and a lot of damage."

"There is something human beings can do. "The adrenaline rush," we call it. Fear, tremendous love. When people kill themselves, commit suicide over love, that kind of passion will move mountains."

"I'm not one of these people that go, "Oh well, I'm just going to do my art and I don't give a shit what anybody thinks." I don't feel that way. I really, really love to have people honestly be moved and inspired. And whether it's just here or just here — it's always better if it's the both. That's why Shakespeare is so great, because he gets you from the gut to the heart to the head, and that's what I aspire to do, more than anything."

"In our culture, we think that happy and color is trivial, that black and darkness is deeper. But Nietzsche said — which is a line that I firmly believe — "Joy is deeper than sorrow, for all joy seeks eternity." And if you see Grendel, you'll see, as he's on the edge of the abyss, ready to leap to his death, he sings, "Is it joy I feel? Is it joy I feel?" And it's so, so moving. You can have a lot of different explanations for the ending of that opera, but there is something so palpable that you will feel when he sings those lines."

"I love it when people say "What a horrible, lousy idea." I think that's great … I hate the comfort zone … I don't think that anything that's really creative can be done without danger and risk."

"I'm trying to make the theatrical experience an environmental experience. We want to have the theatre of it right in the laps of the audience … You don't know until the last half second that he's going to be that close."

"Oh, yeah, I'm scared. If you don't have fear then you are not taking a chance. But what I do have is a team. If your collaborators are there, which is what answers the fear question, and they all are as impassioned as you are, and believe in it, then your fear is mitigated."

"Julie Taymor's definitely a magician. And I think that's what you call a person who, even though they put the rabbit in the hat, is really surprised when it comes out: that's her."

"It’s not difficult to see why Taymor, with her penchant for folk tales and fascination with the cycles of life, would be attracted to the epic tale of an ordinary boy who must cross the thresholds of death and rebirth to claim the mantle of hero."

"Even though she is enduringly fond of her creations, Ms. Taymor never operates any of the puppets herself. "I can't do everything," she said. … Becoming renowned for puppets is not easy — finding a new galaxy or making the draw at Wimbledon is easier. … People sometimes sum her up simply as a puppeteer, which aggravates her to no end. She prefers to be thought of as a writer and director who happens to use puppets. American culture, she believes, does not pay due homage to the idea of the puppet. … She believes it might be better to allude to her puppets as "kinetic sculpture.""

"Sam's like a fight trainer. He shapes you up, he psyches you, he draws everything out of you. He's subtle, though, yet baroque, and I want to get into that baroqueness. Like the other day, during a scene in which I was supposed to be answering the door and registering surprise. Well, it was the end of the day and I wasn't acting very surprised, so he smashes a beer bottle behind me, right out of camera range. I mean, Christ, I nearly jumped out of my skin. But he got what he wanted."

"The plight of the actor, even if he's a star, is the plight of the women's movement. They're saying the same thing to us: get into bed, give me a good time, then give me something to eat, go get the laundry, be a good girl."

"A comedian is not a person who opens a funny door — he's the person who opens a door funny."

"As Norman McLaren said, animation is not a bunch of drawings that move — it's a bunch of drawings of movement."

"John Lewell: Can you tell us: what exactly was Jack Warner like, as an employer? Chuck Jones: Well, what he was like was nothing! We had nothing to do with Jack Warner. After fifteen years of direction (and the other person present, Friz Ferleng, had directed longer than that) we were finally invited by him to have lunch in the executive dining room. This was reserved for executives and favorite directors. Jack Warner was there. And Harry Warner was there. Jack didn't say very much to us. He was talking to other people about other things. But Harry Warner said: "The only thing I know about our cartoon department is that we make Mickey Mouse." Well, that was a little startling. It was the early 1950s, for God's sake! And so when we left, I said: "Don't worry, Mr Warner, we'll continue to make good Mickey Mouses!" And he patted me on the back."

"Animation in itself is an art form, and that's the point I think always needs clarification. True animation exists without any background, or any color, or any sound, or anything else; it exists in your hand. And you can take it and flip it. [...] What makes animation is the fact that you have a series of drawings that move. You don't even have to have a camera, you see; animation exists without it. If you want to broaden your audience, or make it more colorful or add music, then you put it under a camera one frame at a time, and then you run it at the same speed as you flip it, and then you have animation. If it depends basically upon soundtrack, or basically upon music, or color, graphic design, or anything else to sustain itself, then it is not unique to animation."

"The best way, of course, to understand the animator is to see that he parallels the actor. He has the same responsibility a fine actor has. [...] Even the people who write about animation just don't seem to understand that when you have a drawing, you don't have a character. [...] "This is the first Bugs Bunny" has no meaning. It's how Bugs came to stand and move and act, and what his feelings were, and his thoughts, and what kind of personality he was. That developed over a period of time. And you need fine animators to do that."

"Everything on Saturday morning [cartoons] moves alike—that's one of the reasons it's not animation. The drawings are different, but everybody acts the same way, their feet move the same way, and everybody runs the same way. It doesn't matter whether it's an alligator or a man or a baby or anything, they all move the same."

"[W]hen the coyote falls, he gets up and brushes himself off; it's preservation of dignity. He's humiliated, and it worries him when he ends up looking like an accordion. A coyote isn't much, but it's better than being an accordion."

"Humiliation and indifference, these are conditions every one of us finds unbearable–this is why the Coyote when falling is more concerned with the audience's opinion of him than he is with the inevitable result of too much gravity."

"A lion's work hours are only when he's hungry; once he's satisfied, the predator and prey live peacefully together."

"The two most important people in animation are Winsor McCay and Walt Disney, and I'm not sure which should go first."

"I don’t mind people admiring me if they want to but I don’t think it’s very logical. It’s not like I was St. George knocking off some dumb dragon or anything like that. First of all, you’re talking about something I did a long, long time ago. Secondly, we were doing things that were not expected to last a lifetime. We figured they’d last about three years and then disappear forever. Remember there was no television back then and no place for the cartoons to go after they left the theaters.But I’m not trying to demean what we did. I always took the work very seriously and I’m proud to have been associated with the work we did. It’s just that adulation is impractical and makes me uncomfortable. Nobody noticed us back then. Nobody called us geniuses. And we didn’t feel like artists. We were just trying to make people laugh."

"While awaiting sentencing, I decided to give stand-up comedy a shot. The judge had suggested I get my act together, and I took him seriously."

"Men are pigs. Too bad we own everything."

"Men are liars. We'll lie about lying if we have to. I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive."

"To infinity and beyond!"

"I asked Michael (Bay) why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers. He told me to shut the fuck up, so that was the end of that talk. He said, 'You know, Ben, just shut up, okay? You know, this is a real plan.' I was like, 'You mean it's a real plan at NASA to train oil drillers?' And he was, 'Just shut your mouth.' See, here's where we demonstrate that, because Bruce (Willis) is going to tell the guys they did a bad job of building the drill tank. See, he's a salt-of-the-earth guy, and the NASA nerd-o-nauts don't understand his salt-of-the-earth way, his rough-and-tumble ways. Like somehow they can build rocket ships, but they don't understand what makes a good tranny. Like eight whole months, as if that's not long enough to learn to drill a hole. But in a week, we're gonna learn how to be astronauts. I mean, this a little bit of a stretch, let's face it. 'They don't know jack about drilling'? How hard can it be? Aim the drill at the ground and turn it on."

"I'm always described as "cocksure" or "with a swagger," and that bears no resemblance to who I feel like inside. I feel plagued by insecurity."

"This is a second act for me, and you give me that. I wanna thank you for this. I'm so grateful and proud. I just wanna to dedicated this (the award) to anyone else out there, who is trying to get a second act, because you can do. (Speech after receiving the British Academy Film Awards for the Best Director)"

"We've killed more Muslims than they've killed us by an awful lot, and we've invaded more Islamic nations. But we're exempted from these things?"

"I constantly try to reinvent my sensibilities and my ideas. I enjoy some of the satisfaction that I get when I feel good about what I've done. But the process is quite lonely and quite painful."

"One has to be slightly unpopular to have a profound vision."

"Let’s make decisions for the good of all. Let’s really think in a broader way. Let’s think a little past the obvious. And in that regard I’m always shot down, I’m always called a fascist, I’m always called a homophobe, and I’m always called a freak because I’m conservative politically. But how many phony liberals in Hollywood have danced at the Gaiety? I did. And part of me understands when I’m bashed in the media, for the things that I say, because I use loose language and crude descriptions."

"I’m not against celebrating the differences of individuals. What I’m against is the homogeny of mankind because that’s regressive. To celebrate the differences of people is fantastic, but to blend them all together… You know, the same homosexual community that I found such compassion from, I don’t feel that camaraderie from them anymore; I don’t feel it in the social scene; I don’t feel it in the arts. That’s weird to me. Because that was the group that I learned the most from, because they were certainly the most open-minded at that time. But if I say things about the mainstreaming of homosexuals, it’s because I don’t believe in mainstreaming or special interests legislating for themselves. What has happened with gays in America is that they pander so much to the heterosexual mainstream that they’ve taken on the complexes of the heterosexual mainstream."

"Say whatever you want, but try to be productive and positive and friendly. It's nice to be friendly. I was friendly once. It felt real good"

"I never apologized for anything in my life. The only thing I’m sorry about is putting a curse on Roger Ebert’s colon. If a fat pig like Roger Ebert doesn’t like my movie, then I’m sorry for him."

"I have no publicist, no agent, no manager, no lawyer, no assistant, no helper, no stylist, no intern, no maid, no gardener, nothing. Oh, I have a dentist. I had a shrink but he died 9 years ago, right when I needed him most."

"I like nice, honest, talented people."

"I don't trust or love anyone.Because people are all creepy. Creepy creepy creeps. Creeping around. Creeping here and creeping there. Creeping everywhere. Crippity crappity creepies."

"I'm the happiest the saddest guy in the world can be."

"I don't really get inspired by other peoples' movies. I get inspired by situations, by memory, by revenge."

"I feel very happy that Bush is our president. One way that you can tell we have a good president, is by how much the French dislike him. The more the French hate him, the better he must be. And they hate this one."

"When I was a boy I was always depressed and confused, now I think I'm not garbage. I don't try to prove to my parents that I am good at something anymore. But I am a failure with women. I can only be a one night lover."

"No woman could ever hurt me, because I don't permit myself to wish for something from people. So they can't disappoint me."

"In the past they (pain and revenge) helped me a lot, but now I prefer love to inspire me. All that arises from fear and grudge can perhaps make me more interesting but it is not what I want."

"I'm not really a collage artist like Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson. I'm not like those other guys, Spike Jonze, too, guys who watch things and take notes. I'm trapped in my own stubborn world over-and-over, looking for a similar insight, a similar aesthetic, a similar point of view."

"I'm not a career filmmaker and by that I'm not tearing down people who are, but I'm not Wes Anderson who can rent out a floor at the Chateau Marmont for a month to write my new screenplay--I have a life outside of filmmaking and after Buffalo '66, I genuinely thought I was done with making movies. But they pulled me back in. This Brown Bunny, it had something in it for me that I just had to say. I had to express it, it was in me and it ate its way out of me. I wished that it didn't, but it did and I was surprised to find myself shooting again."

"The best articles about Vincent Gallo were written by Vincent Gallo, the best acting performance of Vincent Gallo was directed and edited by Vincent Gallo from a screenplay written by Vincent Gallo, even the best photographs of Vincent Gallo were taken by Vincent Gallo."

"I’m clearly a small-minded person, with my own petty grievances. Hopefully, my work transcends my own petty grievances and small-minded nature. It’s best for me to remain small-minded on an emotional level and broad-minded on a conceptual level. It doesn’t matter whatever it is that makes me do my work. Neurosis, obsession, wanting people to like me, wanting my parents to feel bad for underrating me, making a lot of money, power, social status, wanting girls to like me or just to meet one girl on a job. All of this doesn’t matter as long as the work that I do to achieve these small-minded needs is a lot more interesting than me and my reasons for making it"

"Joey Ramone was clearly one of the most original singers of all time. And he was the sweetest guy. And his death is very sad."

"If the film language and sensibility are not integrated somewhere in the narrative, then they are inconsequential, separate. And if you have one point of view, one aesthetic, one sensibility throughout everything you do, and you don't let people sway you away from that, especially your cinematographer, then the film develops a soul."

"I've only had three idols in my life. Johnny Unitas, the quarterback for the Colts, Richard Nixon, and Chris Squire, the bass player for Yes-Squire being my number one. My love, fascination and devotion for Chris Squire is deep. The pain of my whole childhood was sedated by listening to Yes, King Crimson, and Genesis records. And now here I am, 25 years later, and my Yes obsession is the only thing I haven't outgrown."

"I don't drink any coffee or take any drugs and I don't smoke cigarettes and I don't eat sugar and I don't take any medicine at all. I eat a lot of fish, vegetables, and I stay away from starches."

"I sure do like the color brown. And pink. Pink and brown. If I had to choose, pink would lose."

"Jean-Michel Basquiat was one of the most talented, charming, charismatic, clever, bright, irresponsible, self-centered, self-indulgent, lying bastards that I've ever met."

"I never wanted to be an actor. I never want to be an actor. I want to be a movie star. The whole idea of having to act is too gruesome. It's too ambitious for me."

"Most people want to be actors because they want unconditional love and power and money and to be able to act out a character fantasy that involves themselves. So if one is truly honest about themselves in that way, then you're on the right path. If not, the process becomes convoluted. You have to go out grab it, and demand it."

"The common purpose of pornography is to enhance sexual pleasure or sexual fantasy. It is meant to be free of things like guilt, insecurity, anger or responsibility. It can also be detached from the struggles of intimacy. I chose to use imagery common in pornography but placed these images in the emotional context which included intense guilt, anger, regret, anguish, and confusion. In this context, it is difficult for the images to enhance sexual pleasure or sexual fantasy. Instead, the graphic images work better to enhance the discomfort of intimacy."

"Listening to nasty remarks about me or my work doesn’t feel good. I don’t enjoy being unpopular, however in order to think freely, I must be willing to risk being unpopular. To think, I must risk being offensive. Anyway, most people are not listening but instead projecting."

"I hope my work is more interesting and more intelligent than I am."

"Tolerance is tolerance is tolerance.Period, you assholes. Today’s intolerant, young, liberal California/ New Yorkers are only comfortable within their own shared consensus. Friends must think alike and believe the same things now. They must vote the same and defend the same ideology like zombies. Anyone who disagrees can only be evil, stupid, and wrong."

"Feminism should be a fight for fairness. Instead the fight is only to control outcome. And when feminists don’t like outcome, they assume something’s unfair. Like fools. Most of the left is the same way."

"The reasons why I do things are difficult for me to understand and difficult for me to explain."

"I like Donald Trump a lot and am extremely proud he is the American President. And I’m sorry if that offends you."

"In life, there are times to be quiet, and there are times to shut the fuck up. This is one of those times."

"Let me tell you the story of right hand-left hand. It's a tale of good and evil. Hate: it was with this hand that Cain iced his brother. Love: these five fingers, they go straight to the soul of man. The right hand: the hand of love. The story of life is this: static. One hand is always fighting the other hand, and the left hand is kicking much ass. I mean, it looks like the right hand—Love—is finished. But hold on, stop the presses; the right hand is coming back. Yeah, he got the left hand on the ropes now, that's right. Ooh, it's a devastating right and Hate is hurt. He's down. Left-Hand Hate KO-ed by Love."

"I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night."

"Everybody's a teacher. People can teach you two things, what to do and what not to do."

"You always avoid direct eye contact, you know that? Are you afraid of something? Are you afraid that I might see the real you? Huh? Answer me. Come on, answer me."

"I know that it's painful at times, but we're not making this up. The depths of degradation in cartoons, movies, and television shows, the misrepresentation of a people - it's an American legacy. Not just in television or movies, but in all media."

"My film is supposed to reflect that; it is an indictment of the people who write and accept those shows, because we know that they exist today. It also has to do with the $1 million question: What is black? It is a never-ending quest for who we are, and some people are still in search of that."

"You know, I grew up around black people my whole life. I mean, if the truth be told, I probably know niggas better than you. And don't go getting offended by my use of the quote-unquote N-word. I have a black wife and two biracial kids, so I feel I have a right. I don't give a God damn what that prick Spike Lee says. Tarantino was right. Nigger is just a word. If Ol' Dirty Bastard can use it every other word, why can't I?"

"Here's the thing. I grew up in Fort Greene. I grew up here in New York. It's changed. And why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the south Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed-Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better?"

"With Bamboozled, Lee takes a look at one of film and television's rarest breeds-the black television executive. His satire is based on the current lack of diversity in Hollywood, where 75 percent of television writers are white. And in most cases, the minority writers at networks are all working on the same show (in 1999, it was found that ABC employed nine black writers-all assigned to the same sitcom). In order to succeed in his position as a black television executive, then, Lee's main character delves back into the history of blacks on screen to revive one of the most popular forms of early entertainment: the Minstrel. And with the Minstrel, of course, comes Blackface-perhaps the most dreaded image in the history of American media."

"We had a pretty good time together, when she wasn't trying to kill me!"

"Wow! If I'd have known that I would have put that patch on thirty-five years earlier. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm no stranger to this podium. I've come up here and picked up these beautiful golden men before, but always for friends. One night I picked up two: one for Admiral John Ford, one for our beloved Gary Cooper. I was very clever and witty that night, the envy of even Bob Hope, but tonight I don't feel very clever or very witty. I feel very grateful, very humble, and all thanks to many, many people. I want to thank the members of the Academy. To all you people who are watching on television, thank you for taking such a warm interest in our glorious industry. Good night."

"In fact, I don't even call myself an actor. I'm a reactor. I listen to what to what the other guys says and I react to it. That's the John Wayne method."

"I eat as much as I ever did, I drink more than I should, and my sex life is none of your goddamned business."

"There's a lot of things great about life. But I think tomorrow is the most important thing. Comes in to us at midnight very clean, ya know. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."

"With a lot of blacks, there's quite a bit of resentment along with their dissent, and possibly rightfully so. But we can't all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks. I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people."

"The picture business has grown up since I got into it 15 years ago, has acquired a dignity that is beyond reproach. Hollywood is, today, a quiet town compared to other places I have been and can, moreover, be pretty proud of itself, having pushed more charities, given more time to selling war bonds and more talent to entertaining servicemen than any other town in any other part of the country."

"Wayne's most enduring image is that of the displaced loner uncomfortable with the very civilization he is helping to establish and preserve...At his first appearance, we usually sense a very private person with some wound, loss or grievance from the past. At his very best he is much closer to a tragic vision of life...projecting the kind of mystery associated with great acting."

"It was there, that summer of 1943 while the hot wind blew outside, that I first saw John Wayne. Saw the walk, heard the voice. Heard him tell the girl in a picture called War of the Wildcats that he would build her a house, 'at the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow.' As it happened I did not grow up to be kind of woman who is the heroine in a Western, and although the men I have known have had many virtues and have taken me to live in many places I have come to love, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to that bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow. Deep in that part of my heart where the artificial rain forever falls, that is still the line I want to hear... When John Wayne rode through my childhood, and perhaps through yours, he determined forever the shapes of certain of our dreams. It did not seem possible that such a man could fall ill, could carry within him that most inexplicable and ungovernable of diseases."

"John Wayne was such a nice man, but he was always a little shy with women, especially blondes."

"John Wayne once called him a "goddamn liberal pinko faggot" and Barry [Norman] laughed in his face. "But that just made him even crosser" explains Barry. "He got up out of his chair, clearly intent on doing me physical harm, then a PR person from Paramount came over sat him down and said "I think the interview's over now, don't you?'"."

"I just don't think religion should be a money making organization. There is never a need to send churches or cults money for any reason. If you want to feel good about yourself or make your God happy, give your money directly to a charity or a homeless person. But once again this is my opinion, and I don't want to be in a position of also dictating."

"Everything that is good in the arts is done by some sort of diversion."

"When I saw The Passion of the Christ it made me feel better about what I was doing. And I thought, No way is that fucker going to outdo me! I demanded more blood."

"It is hard to explain to people now how hard it was being a punk back then [the 1970s]. If you had short hair, didn't wear bell bottoms and walked down the street, chances are some asshole in an El Camino was going to kick your ass."

"I wanted to push the envelope, and I wanted to go so far as to actually offend both the liberals and the right. I think I have succeeded."

"A lot of the times with porn, it's instant fame. The only thing I can compare it to is being a child actor. You get it fast, then there's a shelf-life for it. With mainstream films, you've got to go to acting classes, you've really got to hustle, there's so much competition, but with these [porn] guys, if you're good-looking with a great body, you're in like Flynn."

"I wanted to look at how people deal with death … Why is Henry Kissinger not in jail and Charles Manson is?"

"Manson's the man who's responsible for "killing the Sixties." He really knew how to play up the whole "most dangerous man alive" thing when at the time, the most dangerous man alive was Richard Nixon."

"When they told me they were gonna call the record American Idiot, I was the one who was saying, 'Oh no, you can't.' I was the one who was worried about it. Because when you think about it, we know the song now, but then it was a really fucking bold thing to do."

"Live Freaky! Die Freaky! will be, without a shadow of a doubt, the single greatest film of all time about Charles Manson being the savior to all humanity in the year 3069."

"Writer-director John Roecker's debut, Live Freaky! Die Freaky! will have you convulsing on the floor … with nausea, laughter, or both."

"It's the most obscene film I've ever seen."

"Roecker sure is a romantic about certain things, like art and music, though you might not know it from watching Live Freaky! Die Freaky!, his claymation musical retelling of the Helter Skelter Charlie Manson saga."

"John Roecker's Everything You Wanted to Know About Gay Porn Stars *but were afraid to ask, is an intimate, brave and frequently witty exploration inside the heads of 16 male erotic video performers, many with well-known nom de porns: Johnny Hazzard, Brad Benton, Nick Capra and Jason Ridge."

"Any movie about cult figure Charles Manson needs lots of sex, drugs and blood. But as John Roecker discovered while filming his first feature -- screening Friday and Saturday only at the Avalon -- the key to amping up the gore is an old standby: puppets."

"Roecker seems to have been as inspired by Todd Haynes's legendary underground film "Superstar" -- in which he told Karen Carpenter's life story with surprising tenderness using Barbie dolls and a bootlegged soundtrack -- as by the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen and the "Frosty the Snowman" cartoon."

"Wal-Mart has made it known that it will decline to stock Roecker's film, an honor despite itself and one that speaks volumes about Roecker's talents."

"I tell you one thing I did used to like: the fish and chips. But I stopped eating fish this year. One day I just felt the death in it."

"When you think about a better tomorrow, you think about veganism in the world. I don’t need a dead animal or dead piece of flesh to go into my live body. There’s nothing on this planet that doesn’t want to live. I had animals as friends, they were happy to see me in their own animal way. I’m quite sure they did not want to be on my plate. I think hip-hop has become more conscious about diet… You are what you eat, so if this cow who is stressed, dumbfounded, sick becomes your meal, when you eat it, you are eating that stress and sickness. You are eating that fear. My peers and people that are related to me appreciate the vegan lifestyle, it’s really spreading."

"Live long and prosper!"

"I'm much more emotional than Mr. Spock. Spock rarely betrays what he is thinking or feeling. He's fun to portray. But I hope I won't explode one of these days."

"I considered acting an opportunity to express emotions—and I took advantage of every opportunity l got. It took me a long time to discover that restraint can be admirable. Restraint, however, does not mean lack of emotion. The thing that irks me is lack of emotion trying to pass for restraint. Lack of emotion is pathological; restraint is civilized."

"If he (Spock) didn’t have any emotions, he wouldn't be interesting. Actually, Spock does have a sense of compassion though he won't allow himself to believe that. I admire his logic. It's so uncluttered. I appreciate the ability to be precise. I like to think that I am logical—but sometimes I look back and wonder if the things I do are logical."

"I am very troubled by this horrible issue of "who is a Jew?" I'm very simplistic about it. I ask, if Hitler were here, would he consider me a Jew? And of course he'd say yes, and that's the end of that. If we were all in line to go to Auschwitz, would the Orthodox pull us out of line and say, "You're not a Jew"?"

"In the same book (I Am Not Spock), I said if I was given a chance to identify with any character on television, I would choose Spock. I admire him, I like him and I respect him. I would rather be identified with Spock than any other character on television. But the mistake I made was in using that title, 'I Am Not Spock,' as the title of the book. People assumed I was rejecting Spock and Star Trek but they didn't read the book. If you read the book, you'll find quite the opposite."

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"

"I believe in goodness Mercy and charity I believe in a universal spirit I believe in casting bread Upon the waters"

"Whatever we are We belong together Wherever we are We will find each other Whoever we are We are Forever one."

"The miracle is this The more we share... The more We have"

"I did Bill Cosby's "Noah." Just took the routine from him, word for word, and didn't even think it was stealing. Years later my friends started calling me up saying, "There's this guy, Bill Cosby, who's doing your stuff!""

"I fell in love with the right person, a person I know and who knows me."

"When I've gotten criticism, it's that it's too long, too soft, didn't hit the government hard enough. Then when I do hit the government, they go, "What's he doing hitting the government?""

"Oprah: Is there a muscle you use for performing? Billy: Yes — my brain."

"How do you find what's going to make everybody have this strange reaction in their bodies, this response that's sort of chemical and physical all at once—this noise and emotion that changes how you sit? A laugh is a weird sound, and when you get a couple thousand people making it at once, it's really strange. But when I can feel proud of myself for causing it, it's great."

"Women need a reason to have sex while men just need a place."

"You are a charmer. You are the Jewish Cary Grant."

"He carried with him the aura of a prophet, a magician, a witch doctor, a psychoanalyst, and a feared father of a Jewish home.... [H]e was the force that held the thirty-odd members of the theatre together, and made them permanent."

"The Group was the best thing professionally that ever happened to me. I met two wonderful men. Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman, both of whom were around thirty years old. They were magnetic, fearless leaders. During the summer I was an apprentice, they were entertaining in a Jewish summer camp... At the end of the summer they said to me: "You may have talent for something, but it's certainly not acting."

"I was thirty-three when I made A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and many leading ladies around town were considerably older. It was the first movie of Elia Kazan and for Aunt Cissie he'd wanted , who took one look at this little squirt and passed. I mean, nobody knew who he was at that stage. So he asked me and I ran with this sensational part—although he never used me again. [...] The movie made Kazan a hot commodity, but it made me a supporting character actress before my time."

"He was from the theatah, meaning he knew nothing about lighting, lenses, close-ups. All that was done for him by our ace cinematographer, , who actually asked Zanuck for a directing credit. He was turned down."

"I went to him and told him I had no such experiences in life and didn't know where to get the emotions I'd need. He was very patient with me and let me ramble on about my misgivings and anxieties. What he did, in a sense, was lock up all this intensity inside me so it wouldn't be dissipated. He was marvelous."

"I wish I were big."

"There are certain things you should expect from a President. I ought to care more about you than I do about me... I ought to care more about what's right than I do about what's popular. I ought to be willing to give this whole thing up for something I believe in."

"This movie is about the fact that personal repression gives rise to larger political oppression.… That when we're afraid of certain things in ourselves or we're afraid of change, we project those fears on to other things, and a lot of very ugly social situations can develop."

"Writing is all about the preservation of your own voice. So if you give that voice away by guessing what you think and you think and you think as you go, you’ll have less to say and then it’ll go away completely!"

"I love almost all of Stanley Kubrick, there’s almost no Stanley Kubrick I don’t love. I love Lolita, I love Dr. Strangelove. I love A Clockwork Orange, obviously. I even like a lot of Barry Lyndon (laughs). And early stuff, like The Killing and Paths of Glory. … It’s ridiculous. Look, he made the best comedy ever, he may have made one of the best science fiction movies ever, he made the best horror movie ever. I couldn’t watch the end of The Shining. I went through half The Shining for years before I could finish, because I’m a writer and as soon as he starts writing “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” I had to turn it off. It’s almost like Picasso in that he mastered so many different genres. … he took his time and patience and he had a crew of like 18 people. They were very handmade movies these were not large behemoths that he did; they were very thoughtful and his editing process was long. He’s kind of without peer really. If I was gonna settle on a director, probably Kubrick."

"I’m trying to capture what was visceral in the books, which is your first-person present tense narrative, and that’s gonna require a certain amount of subjectivity. In order to be in Katniss’ point of view and in her shoes — what being in a character’s point of view is, is restricting the information that the audience has to what that character has, and not being writer omniscient. I’m not cutting from place-to-place, I’m moving in this serpentine, destabilized path as Katniss wanders through this world. That’s not only true in the shooting style, it’s also true in the editing style. … This was a very conscious decision to create a very subjective style because the books are so subjective, they’re first-person and they’re urgent and you see the world as she sees the world, so that was the reason for it."

"Must be awfully lucky to see colors like that. I bet they don't even know how lucky they are."

"There are some places … that the road doesn't go in a circle. There are some places where the road keeps going."

"Huck and — and the slave.... they … they were going up the river, trying to get free…. and — in trying to get free … they see that they're sort of free already…"

"I know you want it to stay pleasant around here, but — there are so many things … that are so much better. Like silly, or sexy, or dangerous … or brief. And every one of those things is in you all the time, if you just have the guts to look for them."

"He was a small horse, barely fifteen hands. He was hurting, too. There was a limp in his walk, a wheezing when he breathed. Smith didn't pay attention to that, he was looking the horse in the eye."

"You know, everyone thinks we got this broken down horse and fixed him, but we didn't. He fixed us. Every one of us. And I guess in a way, we fixed each other, too."

"Gary Ross is amazing. He’s just — he always has a billion ideas of what he wants, but has a very clear perspective also; he just makes it work. He really does. He’s trying different things and making everything look amazing."

"Ambitious, ingenious and visually breathtaking, Pleasantville is a rarity in contemporary filmmaking; a fully-realized vision that succeeds on multiple levels. Writer and director Gary Ross has crafted a wondrous experience that satisfies as a comedy, a fantasy, a drama and a parable. Movies don't get much better than this."

"Yes, I know bad bad people can also use the .fla files for dastardly deeds (the dreaded hypothetical “Nazi Porn Version” that always comes up at Q&A’s). Bad bad people can use our shared Language and Technology for evil too, but I’m not going to constipate culture out of fear of imaginary worst-case scenarios. I’m confident much more good will come from this than bad, and that’s motivation enough for me. It’s Free Culture, baby. If programmers can tinker with the Free Software’s source code, artists can tinker with Sita Sings the Blues‘ source files."

"Copying is not theft Stealing a thing leaves one less left Copying it makes one thing more That's what copying's for. Copying isn't theft If I copy yours, you have it too One for me and one for you That's what copies can do. If I steal your bicycle, You have to take the bus But if I just copy it, There's one for each of us! Making more of a thing That is what we call copying Sharing ideas with everyone That's why copying... ...Is fun!"

"The corporations that hold these copyrights are media companies that also control most of the new media that comes out. Estimates vary, but it's said that 98 percent of all culture is unavailable right now because of copyrights. So the reason they hold the copyrights isn't because they want to get paid, it's because they don't want all the old stuff competing with the media stream that they control now."

"♡ Copying is an act of love. Please copy & share."

"You don't deserve to be paid because you choose to do something that somebody else may, or may not, want. If you want to be paid for your work, you negotiate that beforehand. Otherwise I would just be walking around talking. Here I am talking now. "You owe me money", right? … It's up to you whether or not you want to do work with no contract. I think artists do need to do work with no contract, because what we're motivated by is not money. We're motivated by a need to express ourselves and to get our ideas out. That's the motivation. It turns out that when people like it they frequently will support you if you give them a means, but this is not a contract."

"In ten years I think the [copyright] laws are going to be worse and I also think they are going to be less relevant. I mean, already the difference between the laws and people's behaviour, It's like they're different planets. I'm not hopeful for the laws changing. A lot of other people are, so maybe we will have meaningful copyright reform. I doubt it. I don't think it matters. I think the tools are available for people to create and share culture and they're going to do that and they might be doing it illegaly and at a certain point it's going to be more than the system can handle. I will say that if the power structure as it exists wants to continue they're going to have to reform because it's not sustainable. Copyright law as it is, it's just completely out of touch with human behaviour."

"Our idea, which art in the ether, that cannot be named: Thy vision come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is an abstraction. Give us this day our daily spark and forgive our criticisms, as we forgive those who critique against us. And lead us not into stagnation, but deliver us from ego, for thine is the vision, the power and the glory forever. Amen."

"I love money! Just because it's free doesn't mean I don't like money. And actually I've made more money this way than any distributor said I could possibly make, which isn't much because independent distributors are notoriously without money. So the most money any distributor told me I could possibly hope to make on this film, total, maximum, in my wildest dreams was $50,000, and they said much more realistic would be $10,000 or $25,000 and the biggest advance I was offered, I think, was $20,000 and that's for locking up all the rights."

"I don't think distributors are cheating or evil or anything like that, I just think that the business model is unsustainable so they truly don't have money. There's just not much money in this particular model."

"Total box office so far has been $22,350 … that trickles down to $3,000 for me. Which really isn't much, but it's fine. People are seeing the film and they're seeing it the the way it should be seen. I do not feel like the distributors are ripping me off. I feel like this is the model of film distribution and this is the reality of it and fortunately my income is not dependent on it."

"Because I didn't sell it to a distributor, it can be in lots of film festivals. It's been in, I think, at least 200 festivals, it's won more than 35 awards which is great. I like that! If I had gone with a distributor they would have immediately said no to film festivals which I do not understand why distributors do, but that's what they do."

"Audiences want to support artists. Which is pretty much how it's always been except during the last 100 years where it's turned into this really vicious, cutthroat, nasty business with all these blood-thirsty, parasitic middle-men. But historically, artists were relatively poor and supported directly by their audiences. There's a great book called The Gift by Lewis Hyde. You know, art is a gift and it turns out the audience is happy to give back."

"My grand total for the free film was $132,000, and that is a business model I am totally sticking to. And everything that I do now is totally free."

"Everyone wants me to make another movie and I'm like "Yeah, I'm doing quilts." Yeah, I have ideas. I have to be really, really obsessively moved. Like I have to have no other choice to do a project that takes that much time and it has to be a motivation other than just that I know that I will get approval for it. Much as I love approval, I mean it's extremely tempting. I want it. And I have a lot of doubts about following my muse when my muse leads me down some weird path. Again, like quilts. But I also know that if I do something just because I know people will approve of that, that's not really going to help me as an artist. So I'm not ruling out doing another film, but I'm only going to do it if I have no other choice, which was the case with Sita Sings the Blues."

"Pronounced “me-me and you-ness.” Mimi has pointy ears and Eunice has floppy ears"

"Mimi: Copyright’s all about balance: balancing creators’ and the public’s need for free expression… Eunice: with copyright lawyers’ need for paychecks!"

"Mimi: I like you! Eunice: So what? You like everyone. I want assholes to like me — that’ll mean I’m really special!"

"Mimi: Silencing you because I don’t like what you say is censorship. Silencing you because I can make more money that way is copyright. They’re totally different! Eunice: The profit motive makes it OK."

"I am not a copyright reformer. I am a copyright abolitionist."

"When you shut down neurons to prevent them from transmitting signals, we call that "brain damage." Copyright is brain damage. It's brain damage in the great mind, and it's brain damage in the individual mind."

"I got a DVD in the mail, an animated film titled "Sita Sings the Blues." It was an [sic] version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw. Uh, huh. I carefully filed it with other movies I will watch when they introduce the 8-day week. Then I was told I must see it. I began. I was enchanted. I was swept away. I was smiling from one end of the film to the other. It is astonishingly original. … Paley works entirely in 2-D with strict rules, so that characters remain within their own plane, which overlaps with others. This sounds like a limitation. Actually, it becomes the source of much amusement. Comedy often depends on the device of establishing unbreakable rules and then finding ways to break them. The laughs Paley gets here with 2-D would be the envy of an animator in 3-D. She discovers dimensions where none exist. This is one of the year's best films."

"For fans of Sita Sings the Blues Ms. Paley’s imaginative leaps and blend of styles are part and parcel of the film’s visual and aural originality. “You can actually feel how much time went into it,” said Alison Dickey, a film producer and one of the jurors who nominated Ms. Paley for Film Independent’s Someone to Watch honor, to be announced at the Spirit Awards next Saturday. “We see so many films, and when you come across one like this, you just feel like you’ve stumbled upon a gem.”"

"Stay away from the church. In the battle over science vs. religion, science offers credible evidence for all the serious claims it makes. The church says, “Oh, it’s right here in this book, see? The one written by people who thought the sun was magic?” I for one would like to see some proof that there is a God. And if you say, “a baby’s smile,” I’m going to kick you right in the stomach."

"Why is it that Johnny Spaghetti Stain in Georgia can knock a woman up, legally be married to her, and then beat the day lights out of her, but these two intelligent, sophisticated writers who have been together for 20 years can’t get married? It’s infuriating and idiotic. I’m incredibly passionate about my support for the gay community and what they’re dealing with at this current point in time. I have arguments with people where I get red in the face, screaming at the top of my lungs."

"They’re literally terrible human beings. I’ve read their newsletter, I’ve visited their website, and they’re just rotten to the core. For an organization that prides itself on Christian values — I mean, I’m an atheist, so what do I know? — they spend their entire day hating people."

"The work of Carl Sagan has been a profound influence in my life, and the life of every individual who recognizes the importance of humanity's ongoing commitment to the exploration of our universe."

"My thought is always, ‘It’s only downhill from here’. That’s how I’ve always operated, ever since I began Family Guy. I had the crippling fear that I used up all the funny last week. That crippling insecurity really drives you to do your best. Your moments of pure joy are few and far between, but they do exist."

"The character wasn't polite, so when I shook Grazer's hand and he said, 'Hi, I'm the producer,' I said, 'I'm sorry. You look like you're 12 years old. I like to work with men.'"

"Women have fantastic intuition. I think they come more naturally to grace; tenderness and affection are considered feminine qualities. It's important for men to learn from women those characteristics that don't come as naturally to us. I think my father was raised in a time when those things were taught to be signs of weakness; that is, if you were sensitive and aware in a different way from just the macho version. It's wonderful that that's changing."

"I made a decision that, rather than looking for Love, I would let Love be me. Let Love be my life."

"We see spirit in the mist and fog; we hear spirit in the silence of the stones. Polish those stones; they make a noble life possible. We feel spirit every time we love, every time we forgive, every time scorn is overwhelmed by empathy and bitterness overcome by compassion."

"My most important professional accomplishment? I think that it's that I'm so scintillating and engaging in an interview."

"That movie has more of an enduring fascination for other people than it does for us."

"Our mother tried to get us to come here for many, many years … But, you know, life intervenes — we've been busy."

"The world is full of complainers. But the fact is, nothing comes with a guarantee. I don't care if you're the Pope of Rome, President of the United States, or even Man of the Year — something can always go wrong. And go ahead, complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help — watch him fly. Now in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else — that's the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas … And down here... you're on your own."

"Something pretty fucking weird is going on. Put your coat on and I'll drop you at home. But don't talk to either of 'em until I do. And don't worry. Believe me. These things always have a logical explanation. Usually."

"Prison life is more structured than most men care for…"

"We're only interested in one thing, Bart. Can you tell a story? Can you make us laugh? Can you make us cry? Can you make us want to break out in joyous song? Is that more than one thing? Okay!"

"Mind if I sit down? I'm carrying quite a load here."

"I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don't you know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well, I just don't understand it."

"Look, let me explain something to you. I'm not Mr. Lebowski. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. That, or His Dudeness &hellip; Duder &hellip; or El Duderino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing."

"Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."

"The Dude abides."

"Damn! We're in a tight spot!"

"Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."

"They got this guy, in Germany. Fritz Something-or-other. Or is it? Maybe it's Werner. Anyway, he's got this theory, you wanna test something, you know, scientifically — how the planets go round the sun, what sunspots are made of, why the water comes out of the tap — well, you gotta look at it. But sometimes you look at it, your looking changes it. Ya can't know the reality of what happened, or what would've happened if you hadn't-a stuck in your own goddamn schnozz. So there is no "what happened"? Not in any sense that we can grasp, with our puny minds. Because our minds... our minds get in the way. Looking at something changes it. They call it the "Uncertainty Principle". Sure, it sounds screwy, but even Einstein says the guy's on to something."

"The more you look, the less you really know."

"The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willin' to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet somethin' I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say: "O.K., I'll be part of this world.""

"What's the most you've ever lost on a coin toss?"

"If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?"

"The coin don't have no say! It's just you!"

"You go for a man hard enough and fast enough, he don't have time to think about how many's with him; he thinks about himself, and how he might get clear of that wrath that's about to set down on him."

"The Coens seem to have less affinity for the cult of Lebowski than Bridges, so it's hard to imagine them being very proud of what they've spawned. But I can't think of two people I'd rather shoot the shit with. Besides Bridges, of course."

"I'm a bit puzzled why most critics think Miller's Crossing is their best. I find it too cold and postmodern. But pretty much everything else is amazing. I think some of their lesser-loved films, like The Hudsucker Proxy and The Man Who Wasn't There are my favourites. But then, Barton Fink, Raising Arizona, No Country For Old Men… They're really the best films of our time. The Coens are better candidates for heroes of modern literature than Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Will Self, Ian McEwan or any other award-winning novelist."

"I like the Coen brothers. Their films are smart and disturbing."

"The most difficult thing to reconcile is science and religion … And so we created a dilemma for her character that plays right into Mulder’s hands. So that cross she wears, which was there from the pilot episode, is all-important for a character who is torn between her rational character and her spiritual side. That is, I think, a very smart thing to do. The show is basically a religious show. It’s about the search for God. You know, "The truth is out there." That’s what it’s about."

"Mulder: Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted."

"Agent Mulder believes we are not alone."

"We've got The X-Files, and I believe what we're looking for is in them. I'm more certain than ever the truth is out there, Scully."

"This kid may be the key not just to all human potential, but to all spiritual unexplained paranormal phenomena. The key to everything in The X-Files."

"Carter carried himself as though he were meeting up with some dudes for a beer. Despite being the ’90s’ most intense purveyor of paranoia, his entire demeanor in person seemed to say, "What, me worry?" After the applause died down, he initiated a penchant for deflective self-deprecation that would last all night — "I have a lot of family and friends who are probably wondering why you are clapping." … In the end, Carter left the impression that he doesn’t take the fandom and his own place in it especially seriously, but that he does take his role as a popular storyteller with the deepest sense of personal gravity and responsibility. "The X-Files gets raves in part because it addresses so many of the central themes of life in the United States at the turn of the millennium — a wariness about technology, a wondering about the deeper questions of life and a distrust of big government." It is his ability to bring these issues forth in story form that makes Carter want to continue, despite the weirdness, and makes him so valuable to a culture that needs an intelligent mirror of itself."

"When you put on your shortest dress, please leave some mystery in it. That's the difference between a miniskirt and a ho-skirt. A ho-skirt shows your frisbee. A miniskirt shows just enough to cause some mystery. What these young women lack is mystery."

"My audience and the stories that I tell are African-American stories specific to a certain audience, specific to a certain group of people that I know, that I grew up, and we speak a language. Hollywood doesn't necessarily speak the language. A lot of critics don't speak that language. So, to them, it's like, 'What is this?"

"…when I come to work here and every black person that comes to work here they go, 'Oh my God, it's heaven. Here we are. We're represented.' Where everybody's represented. LGBTQ's represented. Black, white, gay, straight, whatever. We're all represented, working hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm."

"(My mother) loved Madea…She told me whatever you do, don't stop playing this character. She loved Madea. My mother, even though we look alike, she was a much more beautiful version of this character for sure."

"My father who was there in the house, he wasn't at all a role model…And my mother who was trying to protect me from him as best she could, she took me everywhere with her, which gave me a tremendous amount of sensitivity to the things women go through. ... I would spend more time at the laundromat and Lane Bryant than any young boy should. [In my writing] I'm speaking from the little boy who's at her apron, looking up at the world and seeing all that I'm seeing these women go through."

"Those audiences are my critics. They tell me right away! I learnt very early on how far I can go, what I can and can’t say on stage. They inspire the stories that I tell, and how I tell them. It has to be something that the core can relate to. And what I’m finding is that if you serve the core, it grows, and you find a whole new audience."

"That has never been heard of in the history of television. It takes a week to do a sitcom in Hollywood. I do a show a day in my studio, three or four shows a week. So what takes most shows eight years to do, we do in a year"

"I didn’t want to be the kind of man that my father was. So I’ve tried, my entire life, to be the complete and utter opposite of that. And it has served not only the art well, but I think the audience well."

"Children love their mothers. Especially with a boy child and his mother, there's a bond that's unbreakable. I love my mother to this day. One of the most painful things I ever had to do was bury her, realizing that even though I was her hero, I couldn't help her with this last thing. I couldn't help her get better. All I wanted was to give her everything she wanted. Everything my father didn't give her, everything she never had."

"I have to thank Eddie Murphy, 'cause after I saw him do the Klumps [in Nutty Professor II], I said, "I'm going to try my hand at a female character." It was the brilliance of Eddie Murphy. I need to write him a check. Say thank you"

"What I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that God is with me. I know that. I know that He's always been with me. It is evident in everything I have endured—and the fact that I made it through with some sanity."

"Well, if you take a roll of film and instead of making pictures on it, you process it by pickling it in vinegar and putting it in a jar and presenting it for people to look at that way, projected through the lens of the fluid around it, this is so distorted and such a monstrous disfigurement of the normal way in which you are 'supposed to use' film, that it is a kind of pathology; it’s a sickness in the sense of a virus being inserted in the system. I think wellness and change are measured by comparison to potential for extremes of illness or death. I was trying to kill film. I wanted to let it lay over and die."

"In an empirical sense, extremist art is a unified confirmation of one’s resistance to and transcendence of status quo thinking."

"Today’s smut is tomorrow’s fine art. The profane, with the passage of time becomes sacred. Having suffered under a reactionary ontological hermeneutics for the last fifty years, the extremist movement constitutes an emergent phenomenon which is more than the sum of the processes from which it has emerged. Interpretation theory rewarded by dominant culture would have us believe that history is objective when in fact its subjective nature is based on hierarchical systems of exploitation benefiting a global elite."

"Now that contemporary art, a system that stands for privilege, nepotism and political connections is finally dying, get out of the fucking way."

"The Simulation imposed upon us by shadow governments and hidden elites must be exposed and destroyed. That includes a cancerous art establishment based on commerce and the malignant dictums of predatory capitalism that negates individual breakthroughs based on lived experience."

"We are the new extremists, armed with a vision to see through the charade imposed upon us by the gatekeepers of consensus reality, who manage a mass hallucination we choose to reject."

"Extremist art is non-metaphysical, based on the senses."

"Stephen King writes a lot of things that are really charming and quirky, and that are more ironic than horror."

"It sure is boring to be around people who are in character all the time. I always find it's closer to mental illness than acting excellence."

"To see your own visage up there, it's terrifying. I have to see a film twice, the first time just to get over the shock: the fact that my face seems to be dripping off my skull into my chest."

"People have said, in one form or another, your diction is too good. At first you think, are you insane? And then I realised, I spent so much time in the theatre, and Mamet was such a stickler about that and I am, too – that I had been spoilt. It's a cute acting trick, this whispering, mumbling thing. I realised a long time ago, when people are mumbling or whispering they're either talking about sex, or money, or lying. So if you're not doing that, you'd better speak up."

"I don't understand it completely … but she adores me. She thinks I'm funny. … My attitude towards communication has always been: it's a slippery slope, because you start communicating, the next thing you know you're going to be talking to each other, the next thing you know you're going to be feeling things, and then you'll be living your life and I want no part of that. … So I tried to avoid that stuff, but she forces it upon me."

"I could become a hermit if I'm not careful; I like that. When people on Facebook say stay in touch – I don't want to stay in touch. I don't want anyone to know where I am."

"I think it's possible to be too quick-witted, too smart to be an actor. You have to turn off a lot of your brain, in a way. When you see a fellow actor just missing it, it's hard to keep your mouth shut, but you have to. Or see a director so stupid he couldn't direct vomit into a paper bag. And he's in charge, and it's really hard to keep your mouth shut."

"There is something in his blue indignant eyes, at once credulous and vaguely accusing, that both expresses Macy's outlook – deadpan, sardonic, winningly self-critical – and explains his appeal as an actor."

"Jo wanted to be pumped up before she went on to do a scene, she asked me to slap her... They did the scene over and over, never quite right. Every time she came over to me and asked me to hit her, and hit her harder."

"On working with in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957); as quoted in Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies (2003) by Leslie Halliwell (ed. John Walker), p. 468"

"As actors it is easy for us to play the hero. We get to fight the bad guys and stand up for justice. In real life, the choices are not always so clear. The Hollywood Blacklist, recreated powerfully on screen in Trumbo, was a time I remember well. The choices were hard. The consequences were painful and very real. During the blacklist, I had friends who went into exile when no one would hire them; actors who committed suicide in despair. My young co-star in Detective Story (1951), Lee Grant, was unable to work for twelve years after she refused to testify against her husband before the House Un-American Activities Committee. I was threatened that using a Blacklisted writer for Spartacus –– my friend Dalton Trumbo — would mark me as a “Commie-lover” and end my career. There are times when one has to stand up for principle. I am so proud of my fellow actors who use their public influence to speak out against injustice. At 98 years old, I have learned one lesson from history: It very often repeats itself. I hope that Trumbo, a fine film, will remind all of us that the Blacklist was a terrible time in our country, but that we must learn from it so that it will never happen again."

"The foreign directors are always fumbling about in obscurity, and the critics are always writing about the juxtaposition of black and white and the existential dilemma and all that shit, to disguise the fact that they don't understand the first damn thing about it either."

"I know Italians and I like them. A lot of my father's best friends were Italians. I responded to that in making the picture. I put a lot of warmth into that character. Those immigrants were tough, more intensive than people are these days."

"I love champions. A champion has something special about him."

"Compared to Thoreau, Saint Francis of Assisi was peanuts."

"Too often, I have not been what I wanted to be I've succumbed to pressures. Yes, I have. The things I've done that I liked, I've always done against advice. The bad films everybody was high on. The good films, they advised me against."

"Don't crucify me because of what your idea of a movie star is. I didn't start out to be a movie star. I started out to be an actor. You people out in the East have no idea what goes on out here. No awareness or knowledge whatsoever. You lose track of the human being behind the image of the movie star."

"I find characters with a little evil in them much more interesting to play than the good guy. I'd rather play than ."

"I don't know if they have to care. I'm only concerned if they're interested in me. I don't care if you love me or hate me, but don't be indifferent to me. That to me is the worst thing."

"I've worked with Mankiewicz, Hawks, Kazan, Wyler, Wilder. I've been very fortunate. All of them work differently. I've even directed a couple of pictures, so I have respect for the work. But no matter what anyone says, it's a collaborative art form. I think the problem is that we've been contaminated by the European concept of the Auteur System. I've had movies where I bought the book, developed the script and cast the whole picture, but then the director walks in and says, "It must be a John Smith film." I think sometimes we emphasize that too much."

"I told him, "Michael, you're the kind of producer I'd like to work with because you give everything to the other person even when you're in the movie." He did that in Romancing the Stone (1984). He focused all the attention on the girl Kathleen Turner. I haven't been that generous. I've been a producer, but I find a product like Spartacus or The Vikings or Seven Days in May or Paths of Glory and somehow there always seems to be a good part for me."

"I renet it when I hear some of these young actors say they won't sell a picture. I've always felt that's part of my responsibility—to help getting people to see a movie. Funny thing is I don't even remember any of these young guy's names. I want to spank them."

"To the World, the World we show We make the World to laugh And teach each Hemisphere to know How lives the Other Half."

"In my view there can be no affirmative action without segregation-nor any end to the segregation if our names must be kept on separate lists. I'd like to propose instead a simple scenario: a fair job market where employment is commensurate with ability regardless of gender, racial or ethnic background. I make a pitch, they like my story, I get the job. Why not ?"

"Consistent with Martin Luther King's vision, the government should stop color-coding its citizens."

"Colonial possessions added to the prestige, and to a much lesser degree to the wealth, of Europe. But the primary cause of Western affluence and power is internal – the institutions of science, democracy, and capitalism acting in concert."

"America is the most magnanimous of all imperial powers that have ever existed."

"One way to be effective as a conservative is to figure out what annoys and disturbs liberals the most, and then keep doing it."

"Virtue has great power, but not if it is imposed – only when it is chosen."

"Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history."

"The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth."

"I've been studying radical Islamic thought—specifically, the thinkers who have influenced contemporary radical Muslims. When you read their work, you find that there are no denunciations of modernity, no condemnations of science, no condemnations of freedom. In fact, their whole argument seems to be that the United States—through our support of secular dictators in the region—is denying Muslims freedom and control over their own destiny."

"If the televangelists are guilty of producing some simple-minded, self-righteous Christians, then the atheist authors are guilty of producing self-congratulatory buffoons like Condell."

"The ideas that define Western civilization, Nietzsche said, are based on Christianity. Because some of these ideas seem to have taken on a life of their own, we might have the illusion that we can abandon Christianity while retaining them. This illusion, Nietzsche warns us, is just that. Remove Christianity and the ideas fall too."

"Our President is trapped in his father's time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father's dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost."

"The American Indians sold Manhattan to the Dutch for $700 in today's money. My point is, that's what Manhattan was worth then. It was useless, it was just a piece of land, like any other piece of land which you can buy today for $700 in many places in the world. Manhattan today is the result of the people who built it, not the original inhabitants who occupied or sold it."

"The American idea of wealth creation is being embraced in India, in China, all over the world. It's lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. So ironically this American formula that we are moving away from at home under Obama is being enthusiastically embraced all around the world."

"Scaring the children: for Halloween last night, I dressed as a Democrat and when kids came to my door, I took half of their candy!"

"georgesoros, now a principle financial backer of violent #Antifa thugs, admits his collaboration with Hitler and says he has no regrets:"

"If you follow Jan. 6 at the granular level with the facts that are coming out slowly, they are coming out because the government has been very reluctant to release footage, particularly footage of what happened in the tunnel on Jan. 6, where you now begin to see these cops using massive amounts of force against unarmed Trump supporters, including women. The death of Rosanne Boyland is now being called into question. Was she the second Trump supporter that was killed by the authorities?"

"Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. But in this country itself, there are those who blame America for most of the evils in the world. On the political left, many fault the United States for a history of slavery, and for continuing inequality and racism. Even on the right, traditionally the home of patriotism, we hear influential figures say that America has become so decadent... If these critics are right, then America should be destroyed. And who can dispute some of their particulars? This country did have a history of slavery and racism continues to exist. There is much in our culture that is vulgar and decadent. But the critics are wrong about America, because they are missing the big picture. In their indignation over the sins of America, they ignore what is unique and good about American civilization."

"In the American view, there is nothing vile or degraded about serving your customers either as a CEO or as a waiter. The ordinary life of production and supporting a family is more highly valued in the United States than in any other country. America is the only country in the world where we call the waiter 'sir', as if he were a knight. America has achieved greater social equality than any other society. True, there are large inequalities of income and wealth in America. In purely economic terms, Europe is more egalitarian. But Americans are socially more equal than any other people, and this is unaffected by economic disparities. Alexis de Tocqueville noticed this egalitarianism a century and a half ago and it is, if anything, more prevalent today. For all his riches, Bill Gates could not approach the typical American and say, 'Here's a $100 bill. I'll give it to you if you kiss my feet'. Most likely, the person would tell Gates to go to hell! The American view is that the rich guy may have more money, but he isn't in any fundamental sense better than anyone else."

"Visitors to places like New York are amazed to see the way in which Serbs and Croatians, Sikhs and Hindus, Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, Jews and Palestinians, all seem to work and live together in harmony. How is this possible when these same groups are spearing each other and burning each other's homes in so many places in the world?"

"America, the freest nation on Earth, is also the most virtuous nation on Earth. This point seems counter-intuitive, given the amount of conspicuous vulgarity, vice and immorality in America. Some Islamic fundamentalists argue that their regimes are morally superior to the United States because they seek to foster virtue among the citizens. Virtue, these fundamentalists argue, is a higher principle than liberty. Indeed it is. And let us admit that in a free society, freedom will frequently be used badly. Freedom, by definition, includes the freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent, praiseworthy lives deserve our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option. Even amid the temptations of a rich and free society, they have remained on the straight path. Their virtue has special luster because it is freely chosen. By contrast, the societies that many Islamic fundamentalists seek would eliminate the possibility of virtue. If the supply of virtue is insufficient in a free society like America, it is almost nonexistent in an unfree society like Iran's. The reason is that coerced virtues are not virtues at all. Consider the woman who is required to wear a veil. There is no modesty in this, because she is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue, it can only produce the outward semblance of virtue. Thus a free society like America's is not merely more prosperous, more varied, more peaceful, and more tolerant; it is also morally superior to the theocratic and authoritarian regimes that America's enemies advocate."

"We should love our country not just because it is ours, but also because it is good. America is far from perfect, and there is lots of room for improvement. In spite of its flaws, however, American life as it is lived today is the best life that our world has to offer. Ultimately America is worthy of our love and sacrifice because, more than any other society, it makes possible the good life, and the life that is good."

"If I had remained in India, I would probably have lived my whole life within a five-mile radius of where I was born. I would undoubtedly have married a woman of my identical religious and socioeconomic background. I would almost certainly have become a medical doctor, or an engineer, or a computer programmer. I would have socialized entirely within my ethnic community. I would have a whole set of opinions that could be predicted in advance; indeed, they would not be very different from what my father believed, or his father before him. In sum, my destiny would to a large degree have been given to me... The typical American could come to India, live for 40 years, and take Indian citizenship. But he could not 'become Indian'. He wouldn't see himself that way, nor would most Indians see him that way. In America, by contrast, hundreds of millions have come from far-flung shores and over time they, or at least their children, have in a profound and full sense 'become American'."

"If racism is not the main problem for blacks, what is? Liberal antiracism."

"Racism originated not in ignorance and fear but as part of an enlightened enterprise of intellectual discovery."

"The main contemporary obstacle facing African Americans is neither white racism, as many liberals claim, nor black genetic deficiency, as Charles Murray and others imply. Rather it involves destructive and pathological cultural patterns of behavior: excessive reliance on government, conspiratorial paranoia about racism, a resistance to academic achievement as "acting white," a celebration of the criminal and outlaw as authentically black, and the normalization of illegitimacy and dependency."

"The American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well."

"The worst decay in the two-parent black family unit seems to have occurred not during slavery or as a result of slavery, but much later and for different reasons. Nor is there any evidence that as a consequence of slavery, blacks condoned illegitimacy as acceptable within the community. For the decline and fragility of the contemporary black family, the institution of slavery bears only a minor responsibility."

"Strictly speaking, relativism does not permit social progress, because the new culture is by definition no better than the one it replaced."

"It is understandable but implausible...to insist upon prominent media accounts about law-abiding citizens and quotidian virtue; this is a bit like the airline industry complaining that the press does not write stories about airplanes that land safely."

"Black rage is largely a response not to white racism but to black failure."

"If biological differences do exist, they cannot be wished away. However unpopular the investigation, we have to take the possibility of natural differences seriously. What is at stake is nothing less than the foundation of contemporary liberalism."

"Americans are the friendliest people you will encounter, but they have few friends."

"What the immigrant cannot help noticing is that America is a country where the poor live comparatively well. This fact was dramatized in the 1980s, when CBS television broadcast an anti-Reagan documentary, "People Like Us", which was intended to show the miseries of the poor during an American recession. The Soviet Union also broadcast the documentary, with a view to embarrassing the Reagan administration. But by the testimony of former Soviet leaders, it had the opposite effect. Ordinary people across the Soviet Union saw that the poorest Americans have television sets and microwave ovens and cars. They arrived at the same perception of America that I witnessed in a friend of mine from Bombay who has been unsuccessfully trying to move to the United States for nearly a decade. Finally I asked him, "Why are you so eager to come to America"? He replied, "Because I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat.""

"In most countries in the world, your fate and your identity are handed to you; in America, you determine them for yourself. America is a country where you get to write the script of your own life. Your life is like a blank sheet of paper, and you are the artist."

"As an immigrant, I am constantly surprised by how much I hear racism talked about and how little I actually see it. (Even fewer are the incidents in which I have experienced it directly.)"

"America is a new kind of society that produces a new kind of human being. That human being—confident, self-reliant, tolerant, generous, future oriented—is a vast improvement over the wretched, servile, fatalistic, and intolerant human being that traditional societies have always produced, and that Islamic societies produce now."

"America is the greatest, freest, and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world."

"The cultural left, and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world."

"The [George W.] Bush administration and the conservatives must stop promoting American popular culture because it is producing a blowback of Muslim rage. With a few exceptions, the right should not bother to defend American movies, music, and television. From the point of view of traditional values, they are indefensible. Moreover, why should the right stand up for the left's debased values? Why should our people defend their America? Rather, American conservatives should join the Muslims and others in condemning the global moral degeneracy that is produced by liberal values."

"They [atheists] want to control school curricula so they can promote a secular ideology and undermine Christianity."

"Today courts wrongly interpret separation of church and state to mean that religion has no place in the public arena, or that morality derived from religion should not be permitted to shape our laws. Somehow freedom for religious expression has become freedom from religious expression. Secularists want to empty the public square of religion and religious-based morality so they can monopolize the shared space of society with their own views."

"My conclusion is that contrary to popular belief, atheism is not primarily an intellectual revolt, it is a moral revolt. Atheists don't find God invisible so much as objectionable. They aren't adjusting their desires to the truth, but rather the truth to fit their desires. [...] This is the perennial appeal of atheism: it gets rid of the stern fellow with the long beard and liberates us for the pleasures of sin and depravity. The atheist seeks to get rid of moral judgment by getting rid of the judge."

"Do you believe in the existence of Socrates? Alexander the Great? Julius Caesar? If historicity is established by written records in multiple copies that date originally from near contemporaneous sources, there is far more proof for Christ's existence than for any of theirs."

"It is the anti-colonial ideology of his African father that Barack Obama took to heart."

"We are today living out the script for America and the world that was dreamt up not by Obama but by Obama's father. How do I know this? Because Obama says so himself. Reflect for a moment on the title of his book: it's not Dreams of My Father but rather Dreams from My Father. In other words, Obama is not writing a book about his father's dreams; he is writing a book about the dreams that he got from his father.Think about what this means. The most powerful country in the world is being governed according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s—a polygamist who abandoned his wives, drank himself into stupors, and bounced around on two iron legs (after his real legs had to be amputated because of a car crash caused by his drunk driving). This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anti-colonial ambitions, is now setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son is the one who is making it happen, but the son is, as he candidly admits, only living out his father’s dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is being governed by a ghost."

"How, for example, did Obama get elected as a complete unknown? ... There is a one word answer: slavery. America's national guilt over slavery continues to benefit Obama, who ironically is not himself descended from slaves."

"Did America owe something to the slaves whose labor had been stolen? ... That debt...is best discharged through memory, because the slaves are dead and their descendants...are better off as a consequence of their ancestors being hauled from Africa to America."

"Better off? The point is illustrated by the great African American boxer Muhammad Ali. In the early 1970s Muhammad Ali fought for the heavyweight title against George Foreman. The fight was held in the African nation of Zaire; it was insensitively called the "rumble in the jungle." Ali won the fight, and upon returning to the United States, he was asked by a reporter, "Champ, what did you think of Africa?" Ali replied, "Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat!" There is a characteristic mischievous pungency to Ali's remark, yet it also expresses a widely held sentiment. Ali recognizes that for all the horror of slavery, it was the transmission belt that brought Africans into the orbit of Western freedom. The slaves were not better off—the boat Ali refers to brought the slaves through a horrific Middle Passage to a life of painful servitude—yet their descendants today, even if they won't admit it, are better off. Ali was honest enough to admit it."

"While posing as the pursuer of thieves, and the restorer of stolen goods, the government is actually the biggest thief of all. In fact, progressives have turned a large body of Americans—basically, Democratic voters—into accessories of theft by convincing them that they are doing something just and moral by picking their fellow citizens' pockets."

"Progressives have convinced people that they are fighting theft. If a greedy capitalist has looted your possessions, you would want the government to do something about it. An essential function of government is to bring thieves to justice and to restore stolen possessions to their rightful owners. If the progressive critique is valid, then it doesn't matter if government does it inefficiently, since there is no one else to do the job: inefficient justice is better than no justice. Moreover, when we ask the police to go after bad guys and repossess their stolen goods, we aren't concerned with whether we foster virtue among the "giver" and gratitude in the "receiver." That's because the giver isn't really giving; he's merely giving back, and the receiver has no cause for gratitude since he (or she) is merely being made whole. In this scenario, Americans who are sitting in the bandwagon have earned that right, and the people pulling are the thieves who deserve to be penalized and castigated. This is why I've devoted the bulk of this book to refuting the theft critique. If I've succeeded, then the whole progressive argument collapses and our federal government, far from being an instrument of justice, now becomes an instrument of plunder."

"Here's the formula for Obama's success: "They work, and you eat.""

"The Chinese, the Indians, the Brazilians, and the Russians are all getting richer and stronger due to wealth creation. Yet the leaders of these countries, while they appreciate wealth creation as one way to gain power, have never given up on the conquest ethic as another way to gain power. In fact, they see wealth creation as away to increase their military power; then that power can be deployed to acquire more wealth through conquest. [Americans] no longer have the conquest ethic. But the Chinese do; they have never given it up. This is why the world still needs America. We remain the custodians of the idea that wealth should be obtained through invention and trade, not through forced seizure."

"If we think of the Titanic as symbolizing the American era, Obama wants that ship to go down. Obama is the architect of American decline, and progressivism is the ideology of American suicide."

"This is our turn at the wheel, and history will judge us based on how we handle it. Decline is a choice, but so is liberty."

"My podium is a little narrow, but I guess that's okay since I remembered to wear pants."

"Dan has raised so many points... I feel a bit like the mosquito at the nudist colony—I'm just not sure where to begin!"

"The first time, we did not know what change would look like. Now we do. The first time, we did not know Barack Obama. Now we do. Which dream will we carry into 2016? The American dream or Obama's dream? The future is not in my hands. It's not even in Obama's hands. The future is in your hands."

"Imagine the unimaginable... What would the world look like if America did not exist?"

"Did America steal the country from the Native Americans? Much of this critique focuses on Columbus and the actions of the Spanish conquistadors. But Columbus never even landed in America. And the actions of the Spanish, that was 150 years before America."

"Slavery existed all over the world. The Egyptians had slaves. The Chinese had slaves. The Africans did. American Indians had slaves long before Columbus. And tragically, slavery continues today in many countries. What's uniquely Western is the abolition of slavery. And what's uniquely American is the fighting of a great war to end it."

"Capitalism works not through coercion or conquest, but through the consent of the consumer."

"The Obama administration tried to shut me up."

"By limiting state power, conservatives seek among other things to protect the right of the people to keep the fruit of their own labor. Abraham Lincoln, America’s first Republican president, placed himself squarely in the founding tradition when he said, ‘I always thought the man who made the corn should eat the corn.’ Lincoln, like the founders, was not concerned that private property or private earnings might cause economic inequality. Rather, he believed, as three of the founders themselves wrote in the Federalist Papers No. 10, that ‘the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property’ is the ‘first object of government.’"

"Gentile was, in fact, a lifelong socialist. Like Marx, he viewed socialism as the sine qua non of social justice, the ultimate formula for everyone paying their ‘fair share.’ For Gentile, fascism is nothing more than a modified form of socialism, a socialism arising not merely from material deprivation but also from an aroused national consciousness, a socialism that unites rather than divides communities."

"Gentile also perceived fascism emerging out of revolutionary struggle, what the media today terms ‘protest’ or ‘activism.’ Unlike Marx, he conceived the struggle not between the working class and the capitalists, but between the selfish individual trying to live for himself and the fully actualized individual who willingly puts himself at the behest of society and the state. Gentile seems to be the unacknowledged ancestor of the street activism of Antifa and other leftist groups. ‘One of the major virtues of fascism,’ he writes, ‘is that it obliged those who watched from their windows to come down into the street.’"

"One might naively expect the Left, then, to embrace and celebrate Gentile. This, of course, will never happen. The Left has the desperate need to conceal fascism’s association with contemporary leftism. Even when the Left uses Gentilean rhetoric, it’s source can never be publicly acknowledged. And since the Left dominates academia and popular culture, it has the clout to perform this vanishing trick. That’s why the progressives intend to keep Gentile where they’ve got him: dead, buried, and forgotten."

"If you read the Nazi platform without knowing its source, you could easily be forgiven for thinking you were reading the 2016 platform of the Democratic Party. Or at least a Democratic platform drafted jointly by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Sure, some of the language is out of date. The Democrats can’t talk about ‘usury’ these days; they’d have to substitute ‘Wall Street greed.’ But otherwise, it’s all there. All you have to do is cross out the word ‘Nazi’ and write in the word ‘Democrat.’"

"The fascists adopted an economic policy that is closely parallel to, and in many respects identical with, today’s progressivism. Mussolini called this policy ‘corporatism,’ but a more descriptive term would be state-run capitalism. Mussolini envisioned a powerful centralized state directing the institutions of the private sector, forcing their private welfare into line with the national welfare… Although today’s American Left dares not invoke Mussolini’s name, the honest among them will have to admit that it was he and his fellow fascists who were their pioneers and paved their way."

"As he thought about these problems, Hitler’s attention was turned to America. Hitler didn’t know a lot about America. He had never been to America. And he despised America. ‘My feeling against Americanism,’ he later said in 1942, ‘are feeling of hatred and deep repugnance.’ Why? He claimed, ’Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it’s half Judaized and the other half negrified.’ Moreover, America is ‘a country where everything is built on the dollar.’ For Hitler, America represented the worst case of unrestricted Jewish capitalism"

"FDR Franklin D. Roosevelt cozied up to and made deals with the worst racists in America… FDR appointed Hugo Black, a former Ku Klux Klansman, to the Supreme Court. Black was completely unqualified—his only judicial experience had been eighteen months as a municipal court judge—but he had a reputation as an enthusiastic New Dealer who had publicly endorsed FDR’s court-packing plan. Black was also an active Klan member who had spoken at and led Klan rallies and marches throughout his native Alabama."

"FDR also supported racist Democrats in Congress in their efforts to thwart anti-lynching laws. This was a key condition the racists put before FDR. They said they would not support FDR’s New Deal programs unless FDR supported their effort to block Republican anti-lynching bills. So FDR convinced even northern Democrats and progressives to back their southern counterparts in keeping these bills from coming to the floor for a vote. This is one of the most disgraceful legacies of the FDR presidency and it goes virtually unmentioned in progressive FDR biographies."

"Well, Al Gore invented the Internet and he won a Nobel Peace Prize. He didn’t have any help with his science, right? In other words, he had two other scientists with him. He took the Nobel Peace Prize. He didn’t share it with the guys who probably were the brains. He’s a big fat elitist pig. He’s a limousine liberal. In fact, An Inconvenient Truth is garbage. It’s bullsh*t. No kid, nobody who’s going to change the world is going to look at that thing, yet he got a Nobel Peace Prize because he’s on the inside. He’s part of the elite. He’s part of the conspiracy of the corporate, the bureaucratic and the labor elite. And look at him. He looks like a big puffed out piece of pompous shit."

"Cannes, I slept on the beach in 1971. I had Sugar Cookies here, one 35mm film. I had the two cans, I rented theaters but I didn’t have money for a hotel. Slept on the beach, the Palais loved it, the people of Cannes loved it, it was a festival. They were discovering people. An independent company could put leaflets, we could walk into the hotels, put leaflets under all the doors. We could put leaflets on all the cars that were parked. They were interested, they encouraged someone who was unknown. Nobody knew who Troma or I was. It was before Troma. I was a nobody and I still am pretty much, but they encouraged it. Now they don’t want you to do this. You can’t even walk into a hotel without some $600 pass. If you pay, you can put your leaflets on a table maybe. It’s become an elitist festival."

"There’s about 30 full time volunteers here who are really fighting to try to raise the level of true independent art and make a point that this festival has become dominated by real elitist force because they have a top-heavy bureaucrat, just like the American government, just like the major media conglomerates. The guys at the top who are all making a shit load of money and they’re driving the people below them into oblivion, into poverty."

"Ralph Nader’s the guy. If Ralph Nader had become president, we would not have had the problems. Everything he says is correct. He said, “Don’t tax food. Tax the stock market. Every time somebody trades stock, put another tax on it..." Every time you trade, they take a service fee, five bucks or something. That’s bullshit. The government should get it and give it to me while I live in my refrigerator box. I don’t mean me, I mean us undergrounds. Nader was right on. Everything he said was right on and the media treated him like a clown. The media treated him worse than they treat Troma."

"The internet is not necessarily a golden goose yet, but we must fight to keep it safe, keep it level, keep it democratic, keep it open, keep it diverse so that when it becomes the golden goose, we independent artists can share and maybe at least get a wing or a thigh, even if we don’t get the breast meat."

"Sundance was bullshit. Originally Sundance, Sundance maybe in its first few years, I wasn’t there but I went to Sundance for 10 years and it was a vassal of the majors. It was a vassal. Sundance was there to help Miramax and Fox Searchlight. That’s what was independent at Sundance."

"Netflix has already gone mainstream. Not mainstream but they’ve gone snob. They have an angry housewife who’s making all the selections."

"When I was at Yale, I hung a bit with the Warhol gang. I used some of his superstar types in early movies. I can't say I had any conversations with him, but I did pass him at Max's Kansas City. But I was a big fan of his movies."

"The worst thing to happen to the Jews since Mein Kampf...I can't look at it. It's so horrible. The Israelis that helped make this film were crooks. They never gave us the negative back, they never gave us statements — not that the film was worth anything...The lesson for Big Gus for young people is: Don't listen to anybody. We got lots of advice on that film from older, more experienced people. But the film stunk; it's a disgrace. What you saw was made from a half-inch video that somebody from Israel brought to us...The movie opened in Tel Aviv, but it opened the week of the Seven-Day War. So bombs were raining down outside, but we had a bomb inside the movie theater."

"The same influences have persisted throughout my career: Stan Brakhage, Warhol, John Ford, Chaplin. Toxie's blind girlfriend is straight out of City Lights. And Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels; the school for the blind in Toxic Avenger Part II, that's from Sullivan's Travels. Most of what influenced me were classic American movies. I like Renoir a lot; I like Fritz Lang's American movies. In fact, I tried to re-enact the first shot of The Big Heat in Terror Firmer, where the guy blows his brains."

"The only thing I remember is … he put a lot of urination scenes in Tromeo and Juliet. Too much of that. Other than that, I think he did a great job. It was his idea to put in the line, "What light through yonder plexiglass breaks?" That set up a stunt with plexiglass that almost blew me up. They used too much dynamite, or whatever they use for stunts like that."

"The New York Times is busy sucking the teat of the major studios. They twist themselves into a pretzel when Kumar and Schmumar Go to White Castle Part III. They say, "Oh, the farts are such a statement about American culture! It's such great satire!" It's bullshit. Troma paved the road for farts! But we don't exist."

"Our violence is, as you know, cartoon violence."

"Troma's War is a very underrated movie, and it got totally fucked by the MPAA. Richard Heffner, who just made a noise like a frog and was president of the MPAA, told Michael Herz over the phone that our movie stunk. The MPAA is not supposed to do that, and they disemboweled our movie. They took out punches and jokes and things that were perfectly acceptable in movies like Die Hard. I think Heffner's words were, "No fuckin' good," or something. It was very unpleasant...I hope Dr. Heffner burns in hell, quite frankly. And I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but the nerve, the arrogance, the hubris of his comments! There are very few movies studios that have lasted and remained independent for a long time. And the MPAA is one of the reasons."

"(We are) the herpes of American cinema (because) we aren't going anywhere..."

"We just don’t have the budget to make it look good, and as a 68 year old, drunk, worked over filmmaker, I just can’t stand that video game looking shit...You look at something like The Lego Movie, which is just wall to wall CGI and it’s just a fucking 90 minute commercial. I don’t care how good it is. Fuck ‘em! We get waves and waves of this kind of shit already on TV 24/7. This is something that’s getting marketed to kids and families! It’s just a commercial no matter what you say about it."

"When we live in a world where the vast majority of Americans are obese and you have 17 or 18 year old kids that are 6’ 4” and 350 pounds, then you definitely have to take a look at what the food supply is doing to people. And anyone that suggests that there aren’t readily available or healthy alternatives to shoving hormone injected meats and hormone injected milk, and all this fucking food with god knows what in it is full of shit. That’s total bullshit. The system is fucking corrupt. We have the resources to not cram this shit down people’s throats..."

"Where would we be without Net Neutrality? You would not have Netflix, YouTube, or Kickstarter, not to mention all of these inventions and personalities - these talented people who have come up through the internet, all the news that has come up through the internet that the mainstream news would never have released to us. It's very important not just for the survival of a company like Troma, but for the development of the civilized world, and for the ability to receive and give news and truth that can get around the mainstream sources."

""When in doubt, vomit green foam" is the motto of the B-movie empire, Troma Studios, the brainchild of Kaufman and Michael Herz, whose exploitation hits, Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke 'Em High and Tromeo & Juliet, today clutter the midnight movie section of most video rental shops. Here, Kaufman traces his lifelong dedication to big-screen gore, disfigurement, mutation and raunchy sex from his days in the Yale film society as a disaffected undergrad in the mid-1960s (where he made a feature-length film that consisted mainly of a braless woman jogging) to his present career as a leading impresario of bad taste."

"Mr. Kaufman’s talent can be debated, but his love for his job is stamped on every garish, oozy frame."

"He’s a fascinating and remarkably erudite person to talk to about filmmaking, simultaneously coming across as a wise and fearless industry veteran, a schlock-master, an incredible self promoter, and an all around regular American that’s concern about the world we’re currently living in."

"I am the unknown Will, The Anger that threatens glory and ruin: Lord of Storms am I, in heaven high and caverns deep. I am the Father of the War, Odin for you, Wotan for him, Wayfarer, Wanderer, beggar, king, numen, genius, strength and ring."

"Little Spain is a symbol of the first attempt of a successful Hispanic immigration process to the United States … Almost no one knows that there was a "Little Spain" in Manhattan, just like there's a "Little Italy." That's what's fascinating."

"With Little Spain, director Artur Balder takes good advantage of focusing on a wave of immigration that went on until the 1970s. Through archival footage and direct interviews with immigrants and their children, Balder successfully illustrates the moods, flavors and excitement of recreating a far-away home in a small radius of Manhattan city blocks. … Little Spain — the film — records a multi-dimensional perspective of integration among immigrants from different backgrounds as a key part of integration into a host country."

"There are two main things about Julian – he has a big heart and he goes the distance."

"I have the utmost respect for her because, even as an established actress, she still comes to class. She still works on developing herself as an artist."

"The real thing she wanted was to play women with real depth, and a challenge, and something that she could resonate with – women that had intelligence and strength, and maturity and passion. [...] She's very close to her family – her parents, and her sisters, and her brother; very, very bonded. At some point she became aware that this is where her roots are. [...] She was always a wonderful mother. And it didn't make any difference how difficult the scene was, after the meal, Jessica spent that lunchtime with Shura, and was totally into Shura. [...] Anyone would be attracted to Sam, I would think. He's a very intelligent person and a very sweet person, first; and then he's so talented; and, on top of that, he looks great. He has a look like a pioneer, and that's very exciting. Maybe not for everybody, but it certainly would be for Jessica."

"Look, I'm working with Meg Ryan. I've never done this before, but she's doing amazing work. You should audition her."

"Laura is a free spirit. She's also a great student and a dedicated artist – and there aren't very many people I call artists. But the entire cast of this film, they're all true artists, dedicated to their own inner truth, and they have the courage to share that. You don't find that very often."

"I think what he went through as a child was very heavy. He never got over his mother leaving his father, and following her mother to Florida, to an area that was very different, and losing his father. When he was seven years old, this was a very sensitive boy, who was wide-eyed and trusting, and not knowing how to protect himself at all."

"He wanted private sessions. And he would come for privates, and he would give me a handful of cash; and I found out several years later that sometimes he wouldn't eat for two or three days in order to pay me."

"I think what Kazan is saying is that the Method isn't a thing. It's an action, a process, a skillful or effective way of achieving a specific artistic task. It's not a pair of shoes. It's discovering how to walk. I did an affective memory at the Actors Studio years ago, after which Lee Strasberg said, "Now that's an affective memory. Darling, tell them how you did it." When I explained my process, Strasberg replied, "That's not how you do an affective memory! But that's what the Method is all about. It's a way of work!" You find your own way of carrying out your own and your character's internal truth—within your body, mind, and soul."

"I believe that the artist is a wounded healer, that they are healing wounds of their own, and when they do that truthfully, they heal the audience."

"Laura was born an authentic artist, and, coming together, my job was to help her bring all of it forward and out. [...] The artist is a shaman; a wounded healer. We have wounds that we want to bring forth through the material. It's joyful, it's painful, but not painful in a bad way. And when you do that, you also heal people in the audience."

"My main focus while teaching is that the actor learns to fully express their own uniqueness and truth as a human being, and break through the patterns and blockages that prevent them from living fully and truthfully that part of themself that is the character, onstage or in front of the camera. We train and rehearse with very specific exercises that reveal the actor to himself and to the audience and also give the actor the courage to express who he is and to trust in himself and his instrument."

"Sandra was like a fairy godmother that takes the mists away and helps you see that Meg is emboldened by material she loves."

"[Y]ou strip yourself of ego, and the whole experience unearths all your analytical feelings and self-discovery. [...] It's better than any therapy."

"Finally I found a technique and a few teachers that allowed me to find my footing and I began to work more honestly and deeply as an artist. David Schermerhorn and Sandra Seacat initiated me to myself in a way and I discovered a whole new way of working that I still draw upon today as a director. I always felt something was missing, and I learned to access myself more fully and that really helped me move onto becoming a director which I love and feel fully engaged in. [...] David and Sandra taught me to use everything. Allow all things to be part of the scene and live and also to allow and embrace emotional opposites to happen. In fact, encourage them. Sometimes subtext lives here and that is treasure."

"She impacted and inspired my life in ways that only God could have orchestrated. Her love for people, her love for life, her love acting let me know. As she would always tell me, "You can heal people through your work as an actor, you can inspire people through your work as an actor." And that truly made me see the higher purpose in the art that I do."

"Through studying and through being raised on movie sets, I was surrounded by a lot of people who believed that the more tortured the person, the greater the artist. I always had a hard time understanding that, but thought, "I guess that's the way it is." Luckily, through life and the gift of the acting teacher who's changed my life in so many ways since 1984--her name is Sandra Seacat--I learned there's another opinion, which is: the better the person, the better the artist. The more true you are to who you are and the more honest you are as an individual, the more honest you can be as an actor, and I'm really liking that."

"Well, amazingly, a few friends had worked with her. I did Smooth Talk and Treat Williams said, "You would really love my acting teacher," and brought up Sandra, who was in New York at the time. And then I became dear friends with Rosanna Arquette and she said, "You know, you have to know Sandra Seacat. You really need to know her." And she was very passionate and helped me get into her class, because she would sometimes come to L.A. and do workshops. And then I did Blue Velvet, and she was coaching Isabella. So it was literally, like, three in a row. And so, I was like, "Oh, my God, I have to." So then I begged her. And then I started studying with her in class and, pretty quickly, would also work with her privately on a film, character development and whatever it was."

"Well, she was trained at the Actor's Studio, so people would label it Method acting and, as were my parents, I'm a child of and a student of that. And all my teachers have sort of been in similar schools, Peggy Feury and The Studio and Lee [Strasberg] — I had the privilege of auditing his classes and sitting beside him a bit, and that was amazing. So it's all of that. But what Sandra brings to it — or gave me, since I can only speak for myself, and I'm sure she works very differently with different people — is a deeper interest in the, you know, as Gregory Peck called it — and I had never heard it until he deemed it as such — "the healing arts." You know, he was like, "Wow, you chose the healing arts." It's just so beautiful, to consider it as an opportunity to heal oneself and others through questioning the complications of being human, whatever that means, not in some, you know, preachy way, but in a genuine way. And so that's what she is deeply interested in."

"I like working with Sandra and with directors who embrace flaw and mistake as wonderful opportunities to learn how you want to do it on the next take. It's just a beautiful way to work, and it's incredible that my teacher guides me in the same way. It's the opposite of Whiplash. Sandra's the opposite of Whiplash."

"Sandra lived by seeing magic and possibility in everything. She met the discovery of character and story with equal protectiveness, irreverence, humility and grace. She taught us the practice of investigating healing through acting. But more than that, she invited us to know ourselves as artists and humans in ways I could’ve never begun to explore without her. She’s been my teacher since age 17, and I had the honor of acting alongside her several times. She is my whole heart."

"In 1987, when I was 19, I was studying musical theater at Boston’s Emerson College. My sister, Tricia Leigh, told me about a summer acting retreat in Italy. Mom paid, so off we went. For six weeks, we lived in a villa and worked with acting coach Sandra Seacat. Her method included a deep, intense excavation of self that was designed to free yourself emotionally. It also allowed you to apply the technique when creating a character. We worked from morning to night, and I felt on the precipice of my life. One of Sandra’s exercises included a ritual to help us understand who we were. For me, I had to find my own identity, separate from my parents. Then I was expected to share my discoveries with the class as a performance."

"Yeah, I do. I’ve worked with a couple of people that are actually mother and daughter. Sandra Seacat is the name of the mother, and Greta Seacat is the name of the daughter, and they’re both witches. They’re both just these genius witches."

"It is impossible to express who Sandra Seacat is and was and will forever be. She is a true legend in the sense that she lived the most virtuous life one can imagine. A life devoted to profound service and healing through art. She was a revolutionary, a culture-changing teacher of acting and storytelling. She is a beacon for all of us of what a life of deep meaning and beauty can look like. And she was irreverent and forever playing like a joyful, unbridled child. I feel grateful beyond words to be able to call her my teacher, my acting partner in Under the Banner of Heaven, my mentor and my friend.”"

"Sandra totally changed my acting. Instinctively, I was always in love with psychology and my dream life had always been very important to me. Ever since I was 15 years old I had been writing down my dreams. What's really exciting to me about Sandra's work is that it changes your life, almost on a psychic level. Now I'll get parts and in working on them, she'll say, 'Well, let's see how you're developing, as a human being.' Because the parts you're doing, it's no accident. Those parts affect your life and they kind of illustrate the map that your life is following."

"I had a wonderful acting teacher, Sandra Seacat, and one of the things she taught was she'd put a book on a chair and all you did was ask questions about that book: is it a good book or a lousy book? Who made the binding? Why don't I want to read it? Why would I want to read it? How long has it been sitting there? It's a very simple exercise but I do that all the time, constantly question myself and my surroundings, not in a negative way but in a positive way that leads toward my character."

"There was a woman named Sandra Seacat and she was very much a mentor in connecting up your spirit or soul with the part of acting you are going to have strength in, so then you have the strength to believe in yourself."

"She really changed things around for me. She got me at the moment where it was all beginning to come alive, and it was a great catalyst for me."

"She was out of the Actors Studio, but then she really diverged from Method acting. She did a lot with Siddha yoga. You know, she was a follower of Guru Baba Muktananda. I never became a follower of his, but Sandra brought a lot of that stuff into her early work with me, relaxation and meditation."

"When Bob and Jack cast me in Postman. They wanted–Bobby suggested it, and of course I resisted, and it took me a long time to kind of give in to working with her. But then once I did it was wonderful. 'Cause I am the kind of person that needs a teacher once in a while."

"One afternoon, after staring at the name Sandra Seacat for ten minutes, I picked up the phone. My voice was so timid, she must have thought I was half dead. I stuttered and stammered when I introduced myself and told her Peter Falk had recommended I call. She calmly said, "Why don't you come over and we'll meet?" "Okay," I said, as I flipped through my empty appointment book for a day in the far-off future. That way I could eventually cancel. "When would be good for you?" I asked. "Right now," she said. "Come right now." For some unknown reason, it felt like I was being drawn to the light of a flame. As I entered Sandra's apartment, I spotted something that would soon transform my life. It was a large photograph propped on a chair. I said a quick hello to Sandra but couldn't keep my eyes off the picture. "Who is that?" I asked. "That's my spiritual teacher, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda.""

"She was my first teacher and acting coach. I worked with her from the time I was 13 to the time I was 22. She has deep intuition and there is no teacher that can touch her. If you wonder how to do the work in a way that doesn't harm you, but actually evolves your being? Sandra Seacat. She is a mystic with technical prowess and you feel safe with her from the start. She does not publicize, she does not reveal who she works with, you can't find her easily and she is not cheap. But if you find her and work with her, you will come closer to your potential than you ever have in your life. I choose my words carefully and the above is not hyperbole, it is actual and true."

"There is no higher level acting coach out there. She involves the heart, the intelligence, and the Spirit. She has deep intuition; she is a creator and a summoner. She has great power. I worked with her from the time I was 13 to the time I was 22. Sandra Seacat presents a way to do the work in a way that doesn't harm you, but actually evolves your being.... She is a mystic with technical prowess and you feel safe with her from the start. She does not publicize, she does not reveal who she works with, you can't find her easily and she is not cheap. But if you find her and work with her...you will come closer to your potential than you ever have in your life."

"Sandra believes that every part you play is really part of you, a way for you to work out something in your past, something in your present. Since then, whenever I've chosen to do something, I've thought, "well, this has nothing to do with me." Then, sure enough, once I get into it and really start doing the work, and really start uncovering, I see that it's absolutely about something that's going on in my life. It isn't something obvious. It's usually pretty hidden. But there's always some sort of parallel to what's going on in my own life. And so, perhaps you can use it to bring closure, as a healing, a reconnection. I believe in that. I believe in that."

"Ward's inexperience was noticeable, especially to her. She had taken acting lessons before, but she believed she needed help —fast—and wound up getting it from a talented acting coach named Sandra Seacat. Seacat saved her, and in the end, Ward saved herself. You can almost see her develop as an actress in "Thorn Birds." The segments are shot pretty much in sequence, and at the start, she's cold, withdrawn, awkward. By the finish, her Maggie is much stronger, more worldly, compassionate. The changes were in character, but they were taking place in Ward too. Thanks, in large part, to Seacat.✱"

"Two of my teachers, John Lehne and Sandra Seacat, who both studied with Lee Strasberg, emphasized a wonderful relaxation technique in their classes. While we were doing a scene, they had us consciously think, "Are my shoulders up?" or "Is my anus tight?" or "Am I holding tension in my hip?" Just the question would allow my shoulders to go down, my arms to relax, or my hip to release. John was Jill Clayburgh's teacher, and Sandra taught Jessica Lange, Mickey Rourke, and Treat Williams. Watch these actors' movies and see how relaxed they are."

"Somehow, having to spend so much time with each word, because the words were sung instead of spoken, made me freeze as an actress. I went to my acting teacher at the time, the brilliant Sandra Seacat. She somehow intuited to tell me simply to imagine I was at the ocean. Sensorily, of course. I worked at seeing the ocean, smelling the ocean, until I was breathing with the ocean, and I practically was the ocean. I could hardly believe the sounds that came out of my mouth. They were rich, full, and very loud. It hardly sounded like my voice. But it was."

"After her mother died in 1982, Isabella decided to explore acting seriously. "By then the way of being respectful by not doing it no longer seemed the only way. I'd done film as a sort of amateur, but now I had to be responsible; I couldn't use film as a school. I wanted to see for myself if I liked acting, and if I had any ability. I was pregnant and terribly fat, but I started going to acting classes." She found a coach, Sandra Seacat, she much admired, and started working with her. "All of a sudden it seemed to be fun and passionate and interesting.""

"Ward's first reading before producers David Wolper and Stan Margulies was disastrous. So she hired drama coach Sondra Seacat,⁅sic⁆ who also helped turn Jessica Lange from King Kong's consort into the soulful actress of Frances and Tootsie. According to Margulies, Ward's second reading "was so breathtaking that she got the part right there."✱"

"A former Actors Studio student ("I sat there for a year, waiting for the teacup to develop in my hand"), he relied on the training of a drama coach, Sandra Seacat, and "that's when everything started to click.""

"He found New York drama coach Sandra Seacat, whom he credited with "channeling all it was that was messing me up into something creative and challenging.""

"The company of U.R.G.E.N.T., which is producing 'Natural Affection' as its first offering, is a capable one. Sandra Seacat exhibits a fine range of emotions from nervous joy to fits of despair and is always under control. She is well supported by Nathan George as her lover and Patrick Duffy as the returning son."

"Concerning the performances [in "Economic Necessity"], I was most impressed by Sandra Seacat as the sometimes sympathetic, sometimes terribly cruel wife."

"In Sondra's [sic] class, we had dream assignments where, before you went to sleep, you'd write out an assignment to yourself and dream dreams that had connections to the work you were doing. I've done that with this play."

"As a friend who abandons when she falls on hard times and then justifies it as honesty, she caught the smooth, unconflicted heartlessness of an entire class."

"The cast is a staggering one – Elaine herself, likewise Jeannie, as well as Peter Falk, Melanie Griffith, Marlo Thomas, Olympia Dukakis and Louise Lasser. The director was an interesting choice: Sandra Seacat, acting coach and guru to many stars."

"They are mostly excellent; a few are better than that; one young man named Romeo Mizzaro and one young lady named Sandra Kaufman ✱ must certainly be destined to bring many future stages alive with searching subtleties (his) and appetizing warmth (Miss Kaufman's)."

"I only wish Lee could have lived to see me portray a schizophrenic in Nobody's Child. I never could have gotten near playing that kind of part without Lee's exercises, and the subsequent work I did and continue to do with his primary disciple, the brilliant Sandra Seacat.”"

"She's extraordinary. She made me work in a totally different way than I'd ever worked before. For the first time, I really worked on technique... It was definitely not an easy five months. It was a lot of tying things together and understanding and confusion and frustration and anger. I asked a lot of questions about acting and about me and stuff, and Sandra just had these answers, and they were just like, of course, oh my God, of course!"

"Becoming Meggie Cleary was Rachel Ward's most arduous undertaking. She botched her first reading, distracted by the prospect of another film offer, and the producers let her agent know there wouldn't be a second reading. Suddenly, it mattered. "Say anything, say I was ill, see if they'll have me back," she instructed her agent. Ward then signed on with drama coach Sondra Seacat,⁅sic⁆ whose clients include Jessica Lange and Mickey Rourke of "Diner." ("Maybe I should keep quiet about it," Ward giggles. "Maybe I'm not going to do Sondra's reputation any good.") But after five intensive days of study she did a screen test and got the part. [...] Before Seacat's tutelage, Ward thinks, her acting was largely "jumping in, crossing my fingers and hoping it would go all right." Now, though, she has a technique that is "very Method" and "working from the inside out" and "learning about my instrument." She's sure that her professional evolution is there on the screen for all to see, which both gratifies and mortifies."I hate everything in the first show; I hope people don't judge my performance by it."✱"

"Love is the closest thing to laughter and the closest thing to tears. Love is the motive power of everything in the universe that has beauty in it. Love is the reason for everything and the reward for everything. It’s always seemed strange to me that we have to use the word love for so many things. And yet when you come to think of it, that’s all right, too, because love is in everything in some form or another. Without it, I imagine the flowers would stop blooming and the sun would stop shining and people would stop laughing, and even the rain wouldn’t fall. So love is always growth. I think if I could have just one word for love—it would be understanding. Love must always be unselfish, and strangely enough, love is the only thing in the world that ever is unselfish. And if it isn’t unselfish, it’s only a counterfeit of love."

"I find that I would like now, best of all, to be a good conversationalist. I know I'm not one at present. Oh, I can sit and talk a little of this and that, but I realize that I haven't any definite or profound knowledge. I won't be satisfied with just a patter, a surface glaze of information. I don't want short-cuts to learning. I want to know all about the thing I study. I'd like to be able to hold my own, to meet on a common ground, with scientists, inventors, clerics, doctors, athletes, authors. The most worthwhile thing in life is to store your mind with knowledge. I wish now that I had been able to go to college, if only so that I might have had appreciations earlier in the game. People often say to me now that I have my home, my career, fame (if you call it that), there must be nothing left for me to live for. But there is everything left to live for. All the things I don't know about, all the things I want to know about. Pictures, I've discovered, were practically all I did know about up to very recently. I've had to work so hard, to concentrate so closely, that I never have had time to read or to travel or to think about other things. I'm just at the beginning of living..."

"I love competition. I'd rather have to fight and worry than be peaceful and secure, any day. I've found that I'm a peaceful, easy-going sort of a fellow about all the small things in life. But when a big issue comes along and when I feel I'm right about it—well, I guess I'm pretty stubborn. Even nasty. I've taken up golf. I'm crazy about it. Doug Fairbanks and I play every day that we can get away from work. I not only like the game a lot, but I want to master it. I'm not satisfied just to play golf. I want to be good at it. That's the way I've come to feel about everything."

"I find that I have great faith in human nature. I believe that people are good. I believe they are to be trusted. So far as I know, no one has ever betrayed my faith, in any way. If they ever have, I've been spared the knowledge of it. If I couldn't have faith in human nature, I wouldn't want to live. It is the one thing that could destroy for me the joy of living. I've come to believe that life, under almost any conditions, is worth while. I found that out when I had my accident some years ago, and was in the hospital. I thought, for a couple of weeks, that I would be blind for life. I thought I would surely be so disabled that I would never be able to work again. I didn't suppose that I would have one five-hundredth of what I have now. Still I thought, 'Life is worth while. Just to be alive. I still think so."

"I used old comic clothes stuff in the early days. I had the big shoes, I had the tight clothes, in fact I played several different characters. I played one called Willie Work; he used to have wide shoulders, a little cat mustache, a high hat. Another one was called Lonesome Luke, and his clothes were tight with a little funny hat; he had a funny little mustache. But when I adopted the glasses, it more or less put me in a different category because I became a human being. He was a kid that you would meet next door, across the street, but at the same time I could still do all the crazy things that we did before, but you believed them. They were natural and the romance could be believable."

"My humor was never cruel or cynical. I just took life and poked fun at it. We made it so it could be understood the world over, without language barriers. We seem to have conquered the time barrier, too."

"I suppose that he's an alter ego. But he's a little snarkier than I am - slightly wise. Kermit says things I hold myself back from saying."

"As children, we all live in a world of imagination, of fantasy, and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood."

"There must be a lot of shy actor in puppeteering. His work is the puppeteer's statement. It's his outlet. If I had to face the audience myself, as Jim Henson, I'm sure I'd be just a bit shy. But when it's your puppets that face the audience, it's different. That I can do very easily."

"Personally, I prefer working in the background."

"Frankly, I'm a lot more comfortable if I'm wearing a puppet."

"I couldn't do ventriloquism. I don't have any interest in splitting myself in two, the way a ventriloquist does &mdash; half-himself, half the dummy on his knee."

"It's an adventure story. But it's definitely not in our world."

"I've always thought that science fiction films set in our world have always rung false."

"I wanted to do a film where the creatures didn't look like us."

"It's a rather dark vision, actually."

"People shouldn't come expecting to see the Muppets because they are not here. This is something else."

"I was very interested in theatre—mostly in stage design but I did a little bit of acting."

"I've never felt any sense of competition with anybody, and we're all friends. We're all good friends."

"I do remember doing shows strictly in black and white, too."

"If any-thing, there's a difference in working with color in England and the color in the U.S."

"It has always been difficult to get Big Bird to be very pretty. Big Bird in England is much more gorgeous."

"The whole idea with the show from the start was to go international."

"I really began to appreciate puppetry [while doing Sam and Friends]."

"There are so many forms of puppets. The ones on 'Sesame Street' are probably the most simple that we do."

"With 'The Muppet Show' we used to play with a lot of different styles. That's what it was: a variety thing."

"The puppets in 'Dark Crystal' were very complicated, and some quite unpleasant. In that movie, I think we got into areas a bit too realistic."

"With puppets, I don't think you should try to duplicate what humans do. It can cause problems."

"Puppetry's a lot harder than people realize, and it's particularly difficult doing a movie. You have this scene with all these puppets, and when something goes wrong, you've got to set the whole thing up to do it again. With people, you ask an actor to walk across the room a second or third time, and he does it. That's it."

"In actuality, Muppets was a word we just coined. It was merely to be the name of our act. ... I used to say to people that it was a combination of 'marionettes' and 'puppets.' ... But then I stopped telling this lie, and I'm back to the truth: It just came out of midair."

"No, I don't believe we've ever designed a character around a person. Usually, we start out with a kind of personality."

"With Big Bird we knew we wanted to do a large, a great big character. He should represent a child so he can make the kinds of mistakes that kids make, and talk about it and be out front about that."

"Puppets have the same sort of graceful aging that cartoon characters have."

"I'm sure Kermit will stay young a lot longer than I will."

"There are people who think that we should never reveal anything, never show puppeteers and all of that. It tends to be something that parents worry about more than kids, because kids work just at face value."

"I know parents are often concerned: 'Oh, no, I wouldn't take my kids into the studio because it would destroy all their illusions.' It's a fairly adult concept."

"We started off with this fairly grand concept of, if you were to tackle it at a children's level, eliminating war. What would you do?"

"A lot of the shows relate to interrelationships and attitudes, again, always trying to do it within the context of a very entertaining show."

"Many creative people have a certain degree of dissatisfaction with the status quo, the established way. If you look at things differently, you are thought of as 'different.' In turn, 'different' people are thought to be 'mad.'"

"I think it's good to be your own person. But individuality is a mixed blessing. People who are 'different' are isolated."

"I always felt that I was not a part of things in general. I've always been outside of things."

"Even as a kid, I felt isolated. Isolation makes you sensitive. As a kid, I felt I was the only person who was like that. But there's a good side to isolation. It makes you sensitive, and sensitivity is part of the creative process."

"There's great value in being able to step back and laugh at yourself, at life and at attitudes. Laughter helps you put everything into perspective."

"When you trick people into laughing at themselves, that's wit. If you don't laugh at yourself, everything becomes heavy."

"Sesame Street (1990-93)"

"Jim Henson was a one-of-a-kind visionary whose works have entertained and sparked the imagination of millions of people across the globe for generations."

"What Jim wanted to do, and it was totally his vision, was to get back to the darkness of the original Grimm’s fairy tales. He thought it was fine to scare children. He didn’t think it was healthy for children to always feel safe."

"What do we want our children to get from Henson’s work? The same thing we learned from it. The philosophy of a gentle dreamer. The message that was encapsulated in “The Rainbow Connection” – the one about the “The lovers, the dreamers, and me.” It’s the idea that life is about making a difference, a positive change. And we’ve all heard it, even the Howard Roarks among us, calling our names."

"Henson was, by all accounts, a bit of a saint. Read any biography of the man, and you will walk away almost suspicious of his overwhelming decency and personal integration, his unfailing optimism and boundless energy. What made the biggest impression on those around him was apparently not his astounding creativity, but the passionate and compassionate way he lived his life."

"... Henson reportedly distanced himself from his church as he grew older, downplaying sectarian concerns for the sake of reaching a wider audience with his somewhat amorphous message of hopes and dreams and rainbow connections. (The urban legend that Henson died because of Christian Science-based refusal to receive medical care is just that: an urban legend.) Vestiges of Mary Baker Eddy do surface occasionally in his work, in the form of a can-do sunniness about the human condition that would be a lot more cloying if it weren't dressed up in so much inspired silliness."

"Silliness, in fact, is where Henson shone. It kept the feel-/do-good-ism from ever succumbing to the piety of political correctness."

"His faith in humanity began from an acknowledgement of limitation, not an illusion about perfectibility. He knew that joy flowed from honesty, rather than around it—sound familiar? In a similar way, Christians, whose identity is found apart from our ever-changing and often hopeless abilities and attributes, are free to laugh at ourselves. This is part and parcel of Christian joy."

"Henson may have preached self-belief, but all his stories find people desperately in need of (and finding!) help from others. Despite the sometimes insufferable can't-we-all-just-get-along aspect of Sesame Street (and let's face it, Fraggle Rock) much of Henson's work dealt more seriously with human suffering, both self-inflicted and otherwise. The Dark Crystal (1982) is nothing if not a parable of Fall and Redemption, and Labyrinth (1986) has a distinctly Pilgrim's Progress-like, um, progression. Henson may have believed with all his heart in a "positive view of life," but his work reflects a larger truth."

"Indeed, Henson understood that to truly reach another person, you must aim beyond the intellect, at the heart—at the unguarded, joyful corner of the soul known as the inner child, which, incidentally, is where Jesus was especially focused. Puppetry and humor were Henson's tools for penetrating adult defenses."

"While the post-Henson outings have all had something to recommend them, his absence has been acutely felt, not the least in the character of Kermit, whom Henson voiced. One almost wishes the Muppet-verse had had the good sense to retire the green felt when Henson shuffled off the planet. Kermit's scenes are too often marred by the nagging (and distracting) feeling that we're dealing with an imposter—a toad in frog's clothing, if you will."

"While there's no doubt Henson was a master craftsman and puppeteer, his true artistry lied in the way he channeled his soul into his work."

"Henson gave his creations such vivid personalities, wit and expressions it was easy to believe each had a beating heart beneath the felt."

"Henson was an innovator from the start: At a time when many TV puppets relied on wood and strings, he opted for softer materials like felt and foam. This enabled his creations to express a range of emotions, unlike, say, an eternally grinning Howdy Doody."

"Jim was tall. He was gentle. He sounded like Kermit when he talked. He was enthusiastic and filled with ideas. He was also an astonishing performer."

"There's not much to the Kermit puppet—it's practically a sock. But when it was on Jim's hand, there was another creature in the room."

"Jim giggled when he laughed. His sense of humor could be sly and wicked."

"The people who worked for Jim felt like family and he treated them like family."

"I'm gonna do four or five of these movies, and it's going to become my career. I'll have to keep expanding the bat suit, because I get fatter every year. I'll be bankrupt. I'll be out opening shopping malls, going from appearance to appearance in a cheesy van."

"I probably could've done this earlier, if I was more ambitious."

"I'll always stand by the first Batman. Even for its imperfections, people will never know how hard that movie was to do. A lot of that still holds up."

"From an art perspective, I don't know how you get better than Beetlejuice. In terms of originality and a look, it's 100% unique."

"Frankly, it's all set up now so that you're weirdly kind of safe. Once you get in those suits, they really know what to do with you. It was hard then; it ain't that hard now. Entertainment Weekly (2014)"

"Canada, the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money."

"You can run but you cannot hide."

"Let me kiss it And make it better After tonight You will forget her"

"You say you wake up In the morning Feeling used Like a fallen angel Tired and bruised It's got you feeling So insane More dead than alive Love's got you stained On the inside"

"The cult surprised me. I didn't even realise it had been successful. I loved it, I had fun working on it and it was one of the first things I'd ever written. And it wasn't just that it wasn't a hit - it was a huge failure. No one saw it. I don't know how on earth it caught on years later."

"It would be interesting to have two movies - one The Monster Squad, and one The Monster Squad and they're 30 years apart and so are the kids; the characters have aged. As long as people understood that's what we're doing, I think that could be fun. That's a good idea"

"This was in Milwaukee when I was eleven years old. I went to see my sister give a dramatic reading. She'd been taking drama lessons. I walked into the hall, and there was a little stage at the other end, and maybe 150 people, parents mostly, or children like myself. The lights went down slowly, very slowly. Then it was dark. Spotlights hit the stage, and there was my sister, standing there in the middle of the stage, and... everyone was listening to her. Everyone. At that moment I thought, that must be the most beautiful thing in the world, to be able to arrange things so that people have to listen to you. So, that's why I became an actor. Well, anyway, my analyst says it's better than running naked in Central Park..."

"[On Young Frankenstein] I started writing two pages about what I would like to see it become [...] I would like it to be a happy ending. My agent called me…he said, "I wanted to do a film with you and Marty Feldman and Peter Boyle." So I wrote a couple more pages with the Transylvania ending, and she said "This is great, we should get Mel Brooks to direct." And he wouldn't direct something he didn't conceptualize. The phone rings, it was Mel, and he says "what are you getting me into?" I said, nothing that you don’t want to get into."

"[On Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory] I thought the script was very good, but something was missing. I wanted to come out with a cane, come down slowly, have it stick into one of the bricks, get up, fall over, roll around, and they all laugh and applaud. The director asked, ‘what do you want to do that for?’ I said from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth."

"I trust you, I love you."

"No! The other thing, that God brought us together for a reason."

"I found I was really comfortable taking on a different personality. It saved me from myself, in a way."

"There are some times when I think acting can be a noble profession."

"I think the worst thing that can happen to a good actor is fame. The limelight is a tricky place, because you can't believe what's going on around you. You stop observing. You stop perceiving. You stop extending yourself, and you become isolated. Our duty as actors is to remain compassionate and curious. Fame complicates all that."

"It's just an incredible gift, giving birth. I never felt so empowered, so powerful, so womanly as I did after I gave birth. I felt more feminine than I ever had in my life."

"As an actor, you're sort of the court-appointed lawyer for the character. And that's what used to draw me to scripts – something in a woman that I wanted to defend, something that I recognized or wanted to understand, something that turned my head."

"I've gravitated towards independent cinema because you have to work harder in studio scripts to flesh out characters, particularly female ones. They are not as sharply edged, they tend to be quite watery. They are not renderings of women as I know them."

"Faith is important to me. I wanted to make sure the tone was reverent. I'm just someone who marvels at God. I grew up Catholic, but I'm very comfortable in all religions."

"My husband watched it live online and I was awakened with coffee and the good news. He's my biggest fan and he was really rooting for this to happen."

"I just wanted to study how to portray clairvoyance, and I finally took an ocular approach. She has these beautiful blue eyes and her gaze is gently penetrating. All the obvious stuff about her you can find online but I wanted more of the nitty-gritty, like how did it affect her sex life? If you're domestic ballbuster by day and a ghostbuster by night, how does that affect your home life? I opted not to go down to their museum of the occult that they maintain in the basement, Patrick and I both. We stayed upstairs."

"I have a two-year-old who just turned three, and my four-year-old just turned five. I have the same irrational feelings taking them to pre-school. It's this charged combination of stress and joy and anxiety and excitement. When they're away, you've got a sudden loss of purpose and this ever-present fear about the kid's welfare. The departure of our children from our nest is not an easy thing."

"The goal was just to finish the movie and get it out in a few theaters. To think that decades later people would still be thinking and talking about it, I could have never imagined."

"You can’t expect anything. In the Evil Dead movies you can only expect the unexpected. These were never designed to be a franchise. These were a very slow growing series of movies and the TV show was a natural outgrowth; it made more sense to do a TV show than a 75-million-dollar movie, for example. It’s dictated by economics and look, a lot of the difference between Army Of Darkness and now is that Army Of Darkness flopped, which most people forget; the series was dead after that. It took until the late nineties to rekindle it on DVD, so we’re actually really glad to celebrate the release of the Ash Vs Evil Dead DVD so DVD collectors can add it to the rest of the series."

"I didn't at first because horror movies scared me too much, but I really do love the genre and it’'s a playground where you can really be artistic and create ideas in the minds of the audience and portray the unreal. It'’s very cool experimentation ground for a filmmaker."

"Frankenstein, he makes a friend, he wants a wife... That’s the one that I think cemented the creature as an icon, because all of the sudden you got to know the creature as a full-fledged person, and you felt sympathy for it, and not just, “Oh, it’s a monster.”"

"A lot of people who are in the movie business don't really know much about movies, and they certainly don't know movie history. You have to even find a code when you're talking to these people—you can't use the references that you would use when talking to somebody who knows movie history. When you go in to pitch something, it depends what you invoke. You can't invoke anything really before 1980 with these people because they don't know what you're talking about. It's limiting. They get annoyed. They get offended that you are somehow trying to expose the fact that they don't know things, and make them feel inadequate. Which is of course not the point, or why you do it."

"Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant. He wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values, or traditions."

"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now, I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I'd put the heads on pikes, right. I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you're gone."

"There is a growing global anti-establishment revolt against the permanent political class at home, and the global elites that influence them, which impacts everyone from Lubbock, Tex., to London, England...We look at London and Texas as two fronts in our current cultural and political war."

"We should just go buck wild...Let the grassroots turn on the hate because that’s the ONLY thing that will make them do their duty."

"We don’t like to try to guess what’s going to happen in the future, but I’ve got to tell you, I think people were very engaged in this election, and I think will be very engaged as time goes forward. The key is to hold people accountable. The hobbits, or the deplorables, had a great run in ’16. Everybody mocked them and ridiculed them, and now they’ve spoken. I think ’17 is going to be a very exciting year,"

"The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while...I want you to quote this, the media here is the opposition party. They don't understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States... The elite media got it dead wrong, 100 percent dead wrong. [The 2016 election was] a humiliating defeat that they will never wash away, that will always be there...You’re the opposition party. Not the Democratic Party. You’re the opposition party. The media’s the opposition party."

"[Re Spicer loss of credibility] Are you kidding me? We think that's a badge of honor. 'Questioning his integrity' are you kidding me? The media has zero integrity, zero intelligence, and no hard work."

"We call ourselves ‘the Fight Club.’ You don’t come to us for warm and fuzzy. We think of ourselves as virulently anti-establishment, particularly ‘anti-’ the permanent political class. We say Paul Ryan was grown in a petri dish at the Heritage Foundation. We hire people who are freaks. They don’t have social lives. They’re junkies about news and information."

"When two-thirds or three-quarters of the C.E.O.s in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think . . . A country is more than an economy. We’re a civic society."

"And we’re at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict, of which if the people in this room, the people in the church, do not bind together and really form what I feel is an aspect of the church militant, to really be able to not just stand with our beliefs, but to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity that’s starting, that will completely eradicate everything that we’ve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years. ... Now that call converges with something we have to face, and it’s a very unpleasant topic, but we are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism. And this war is, I think, metastasizing far quicker than governments can handle it."

"Until we have the black working class and the Hispanic working class getting high-value-added jobs, we've failed as a society. To me: citizens first. And we don't need a million immigrants in this country. Particularly, we don't need a million immigrants that don't come with a real set of skills."

"If Bernie Sanders had an ounce of [[Michael Avenatti|[Michael] Avenatti’s]] fearlessness, he would’ve been the Democratic nominee, and we would have had a much tougher time beating him. Now, I don’t believe a professional politician is going to be there at the end of the day. I’ve always said it’s going to be someone like Oprah, or Avenatti, or somebody that’s more media-savvy that’s going to be there."

"The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit."

"[He's a] whiner...I don’t think that the alt-right is anti-Semitic at all...Are there anti-Semitic people involved in the alt-right? Absolutely. Are there racist people involved in the alt-right? Absolutely. But I don’t believe that the movement overall is anti-Semitic."

"I’m a Leninist. Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment."

"We're going to federal court to look for radical transparency... What the Democrats are doing are generating &mdash; you got the printing press going &mdash; they're generating ballots everywhere. You got ballots coming out of &mdash; you got new votes in Georgia, got new votes in Pennsylvania..."

"Everybody take a deep breath. Not only do we got this, we already own this. Okay: He's President of the United States; He won a resounding victory on votes that matter. Right? You have Black Lives Matter, you have All Lives Matter &mdash; we have Votes That Matter. Votes that matter are: certifiable, verifiable, legal votes that were voted on the third of November, the year of our Lord 2020."

"There is no day of infamy yesterday. Everybody take a deep breath, say a prayer, commit yourself, trust the process... Because we've won, not "We're going to win, ..." The President has won... We're not going to play these games, 50,000 ballots here, no postmark... Burke's dictum: We owe as much to those who came before us.. Everybody says it's all for the kids, for the grandkids, yes... But Burke told us... we have a moral obligation to take that, and make it better and pass it on... and doing that, you respect your obligations to those that came before you... Jack Maxey: the men at Normandy, tell us about them... Twenty years of age.. Everybody that voted on the third: Pres. Trump took an oath to God.. You have a moral obligation, direct connection, to those kids that died at Normandy, that couldn't even vote. Did they whine? Did they cry? And they knew they were going to certain death... You're going into that.. The only way we're going to get through is to push ourselves through... Stop with your friends, "I'm so worried. I'm so nervous " STOP IT. We've got this. The only way they can take it is if we give it to them... If you allow that to happen... I want you to explain it to the twenty year old kid in the first wave on D-Day..."

"Here in the Judeo-Christian West we believe in eternal life. In Philadelphia they'll say they believe in eternal voting."

"The dead will rise again &mdash; at least in Pennsylvania, to vote."

"Pennsylvania, if you don't win this now, not only will you never win again &mdash; you don't deserve to win again."

"The Hard Drive From Hell: you come for the porn, but you stay for the compromise."

"Mike Lindell: "'The Big Lie' is the big lie." Steve: [Laughter] Is that like a Zen koan? Like "the sound of one hand clapping in the forest"?!"

"If Andrew [Breitbart] were still around, I bet he'd tell Bannon to stay in Europe — and not just because his tendency to wear several shirts seems more consistent with European fashion. Bannon's understanding of conservatism is entirely European... Conservatism in America has always been deeply traditionalist, sometimes too much so. But at the core of the modern conservative movement has been the effort to protect, defend and conserve the traditions of a liberal revolution, grounded in the best arguments of the enlightenment (slavery notwithstanding). Bannon's potted blood and soil nationalism and racially tinged populism runs counter to that project and the best and highest ideals of conservatism and America itself. He turned Andrew's Breitbart.com into a "platform" (his word) for the alt-right seeking to inject European swill into the American body politic. Let him stay in Europe and hand out torches for the marchers. His un-American schtick has no place here. I'm sure Andrew would agree."

"Donald J. Trump today announced that Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon has been appointed CEO, temporarily stepping down from his role with Breitbart News to work full-time on Mr. Trump’s campaign in a new position designed to bolster the business-like approach of Mr. Trump’s campaign."

""I have known Steve and Kellyanne both for many years. They are extremely capable, highly qualified people who love to win and know how to win," said Mr. Trump."

"Mr. Bannon, once recognized by Bloomberg Politics as the “most dangerous political operative in America,” will oversee the campaign staff and operations in addition to strategic oversight of major campaign initiatives in addition to working with Mr. Manafort."

"Trump (and Bannon and other right-wing authoritarian leaders around the world) is often referred to as a "populist" because he displays faux concern for the working class and a resentment of science and education, but his policies are in fact grotesquely elitist. If by "populist" we mean whipping up resentment against immigrants and people of color, then we should say that. Otherwise, "populism" is just a lazy euphemism for racism."

"I want to thank Steve Bannon for his service. He came to the campaign during my run against Crooked Hillary Clinton - it was great! Thanks S"

"Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind."

"Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination."

"Steve had very little to do with our historic victory."

"Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue."

"No sane person would hire Steven Bannon for a job that included making the trains run on time."

"Other than Trump himself, Bannon was certainly the oldest inexperienced person ever to work in the White House. It was a flaky career that got him here. Catholic school in Richmond, Virginia. Then a local college, Virginia Tech. Then seven years in the Navy, a lieutenant on a ship duty and then in the Pentagon. While on active duty, he got a master's degree at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, but then he washed out of his naval career. Then an MBA from Harvard Business School. Then four years as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs- his final two years focusing on the media industry in Los Angeles- but not rising above a midlevel position. In 1990, at the age of thirty-seven, Bannon entered peripatetic entrepreneurhood under the auspices of Bannon & Co., a financial advisory firm to the entertainment industry. This was something of a hustler's shell company, hanging out a shingle in an industry of a small center of success and concentric rings radiating out of rising, aspiring, falling, and failing strivers. Bannon & Co., skirting falling and failing, made it to aspiring by raising small amounts of money for independent film projects- none a hit. Bannon was rather a movie figure himself. A type. Alcohol. Bad marriages. Cash-strapped in a business where the measure of success is excesses of riches. Ever scheming. Ever disappointed. For a man with a strong sense of his own destiny, he tended to be hardly noticed."

"Chinese media is taking aim at Steve Bannon, with one broadcaster calling the former White House adviser a “shameless anti-Chinese pioneer” over the weekend."

"Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, has used tough rhetoric on China’s ruling Communist Party since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, accusing the regime of “premeditated murder” and estimating the country owes the world “north of $5 trillion” for economic devastation wrought by the virus."

"Something true most people won’t say: Steve Bannon sacrificed his whole life for his country. His life will never be the same again. He was called a white supremacist and neo-Nazi by the press because they recognized what a formidable adversary he was."

"One of the first things I did when I came on, I said, “I do not want this Kong to be a quadruped. I want him to stand upright, I want a throwback to the 1933 film where he is a biped, because he is a monster. He’s not just a big silverback gorilla, he’s a movie monster.” So I wanted to stand him upright, I wanted to make him tall, and part of that is because I wanted him to feel like this fusion between a god, a man, and a beast. I wanted to make him big enough that, if any of us stood at this table and we looked up at this thing, towered over us, how big does that thing have to be for the first thing that your brain says is, “That’s a god. I’m looking at a god.”"

"Kong, I think represents a classic cinematic case of being misunderstood. And so, tapping into that is a very, very pure way of breaking down his character and then getting into him being this lonely protector, and the sad plight that he has is a totally different thing than we’ve seen before. Was it difficult? Sure, but it was necessary."

"You're going to have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood."

"I just heard what was said, it isn't strictly accurate by any means, I'm a man who's just been lucky on having wonderful partners, Schoedsack alot more than I did on Grass and Chang, and right down the line I've only had John Ford as a partner, Thomas is a great friend on technicolor, and for cinerama, Fred Waller invented it, Thomas picked up the ball and ran with it, and there's a young man in this audience, Bob Bendick, that most of you have never heard, that did far more of the production then I did. I want to thank all the great partners I've had in my life, thank you. I just want to add I'm still John Ford's partner."

"I liked Merian Cooper well enough. He had this wonderful, boyish enthusiasm, and I was keen about his style and his friendship and what he stood for as a human being. I was ready to take whatever Merian Cooper wanted me to do. He was like a big boy who had enthusiasms."

"We were shooting a Ku Klux Klan parade led by Bill [William Shatner], and he went through the black part of town in a parade of cars carrying crosses with the hoods, and then they burned the flaming cross. We shot late at night; I said, "Cut, print!" and everybody went, "Yeah, we're out of here!" Guys raced to their cars, the grips threw the last couple of things in the trucks and we just drove straight north."

"I come across as a very straightforward guy and that tends to surprise people [...] Clearly my subconscious mind must be some kind of boiling inferno."

"[Asked why he never made a film like the art house titles his company distributed: I]t's an economic situation. All of those films were made in Europe with government subsidies. Fellini, Bergman, Truffaut did not have the necessity of having to earn their money back and so they were free to do what they liked. In the US it's different. It's a money-making industry, so that's what you have to do"

"I don't know if I would say I'm an artist. [...] I would say that I'm a craftsman. I attempt to ply my trade in the best possible way. If occasionally something transcends the craft, then that's wonderful. [...] It doesn't happen very often."

"My father was an engineer and I intended to follow in his footsteps, but movies became my real passion. Careful planning is important in engineering, so I used that experience to focus on film preproduction. With the low budgets I had, I couldn't afford to have the cast and crew waiting around for days on a 10-day picture while I figured out how and what to shoot."

"It's not so much watching them but understanding how they were made – the preparation and willingness to deviate when necessary especially if you're on a low budget, I also took every film I made seriously and did my best on every one."

"The thing that I loved so much about the monsters is that the assumption is that they're broken and that fixing them no longer makes them a monster so they have to stay that way. And if you want to write something sort of complicated that's about kind of the nature of us all having a monster inside of us, I mean, I think that's why the monsters have endured. They're all weird reflections of aspects of our personalities. I can't really think of anything I'd rather be doing than that."

"I think, about a lot of these monsters is that there are these very central, basic, human emotions that you can talk about when you talk about these monsters. You can talk about Dracula’s longing for love, you can talk about the Mummy’s longing for love. So as messed up as they may be in terms of their behavior, and they are monsters, there always has to be a rooting and an understandable idea behind why they are who they are."

"But what it really is about is storytelling. Character, story, character, story and that kind of got me through, and then I just wrote my ass off. Everything I've directed, I've written. So whenever anybody asks me how to become a director, I say "For me, you've got to write." Nobody ever offered me anything the first five years, so I just wrote my own."

"What's great is that he's written this, so there's never any confusion between what the writer wants and what the director wants. He always rewriting and tweaking and I like that. I like somebody who's passionate about their project and what they're doing. And he shows up and he knows exactly what he wants and he's incredibly clear. He mustn't be given caffeine. He's got more energy that anybody I've ever seen. It's extraordinary when you think how much of a weight this production must be for a director. I'd be terrified. He's endlessly brilliant and fun and comes up with really good notes. It's been really great."

"The first Elm Street was such a fresh idea and it absolutely blew me away. But the second one didn’t have Wes involved and I think it suffered as a result of that. With the third one Wes and his writing partner Bruce Wagner already had a script before I came onboard. Then me and Frank Darabont did some re-writes. We thought ‘why can’t we make this film wilder and much more fun that the first one’. I realised that the heart of it was these adolescent kids. These 15/16 year old kids who are just at that age when you start to realise that bad things happen in the world. Of course, none of the adults believe the kids about Freddy so going to them always makes things worse in these films."

"Stephen Sommers certainly knew what he was doing. Indiana Jones is a hardened cynical guy with a heart of mush and Stephen created an Indiana Jones-lite, one who was a jocular guy willing to take a pie to the face, handle a gun, work in a fist fight, and handle all the requirements of an action hero. Brendan has the unique ability to take a pie to the face, let himself be in a situation where he feels overwhelmed, and then survive. This was definitely in the wheel house of Indiana Jones and always has been. It was quite conscious on Stephen’s part and now I’ve done something different with it."

"You have to not be arrogant and say you know better, and you have to not thwart their creativity because they are creative people and they have a very different point-of-view than a filmmaker on how to get people in the seats. So, it’s a balance, like everything in life, between keeping your focus and being overly constricting. So, if you want to be a filmmaker, you have to realize what a long arbiter a movie is cut of and shaped on, how many phases there are to it, and how long you have to be totally focused on your story and the movie itself, and how it seemed one way but making a film is really trench warfare."

"I staggered through my career and came out the other end, alive. I made some films that meant something to me. In my opinion, they weren’t all great, and they weren’t all successful, but they sure were ‘me’. And this is what I was going through or thinking or feeling as a director at the time, and I’m very proud of them. A lot of great directors just never had the chance to have their work appreciated and celebrated and watched, all these years after they were made. So, man, what do you want out of life? It’s great!"

"There were two times in my life that inspired me the most. The first was when I was a kid, probably the most emotionally influential time, when you’re naïve and innocent. I went to movie theaters and fell in love with genre films in the 1950s, when there was a big wave of monster movies. My passion came from the young guy who was watching The Fly back in 1958. Then, going to USC I began to watch movies in a different way and was exposed to different kinds of movies, foreign films. We had directors like Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks and John Ford come down and lecture us. It was unbelievable!"

"When I think of John Carpenter, I am amazed at the fact that we take him for granted. How can we? Why should we? He is lightning in a bottle"

"So from there on I made all their science fiction films, and the more I did of these films the more I liked it because the studio left me alone. No one at that time was an expert at making sf films so I claimed to be one. I wasn't, of course, but the studio didn't know that so they never argued with me, no matter what I did. In most of my sf films I tried to create an atmosphere because I think if you shoot an imaginative film--a film in which you ask an audience to believe things that are bizarre--you have to make them believe it. You can't do this with the story or actors alone, you have to create a kind of atmosphere while shooting it in which the audience's credibility will be suspended to the point where they don't say to themselves: "That's impossible!""

"I get fan mail almost every day, and lots of calls from people who say, "We’re having a party. Could you bring your rubber suit over and jump in the pool and scare everybody?.""

"I'll put it this way, it's like when you play football and you put on all the gear — the shoes and the pads and the helmet. At first, it's bulky and cumbersome. But then, when you go in the game and you start to play, you don't even know you have it on. Swimming in the suit was like that. Once you get into it, you forget about the suit."

"[About why he named his daughter True and son Ocean] I want those names to be their destiny, for my daughter to be honest and my son to be expansive. I try to be like a forest, revitalizing and constantly growing. … being called Forest helped me find my identity."

"Life is full of choices, and many years ago, I chose to become a vegetarian, and it was one of the best choices I’ve ever made."

"To me, the zombies have always just been zombies. They’ve always been a cigar. When I first made Night of the Living Dead, it got analyzed and overanalyzed way out of proportion. The zombies were written about as if they represented Nixon’s Silent Majority or whatever. But I never thought about it that way. My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react, or react stupidly. I’m pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible."

"I don't like the new trends in horror. All this torture stuff seems really mean-spirited. People have forgotten how to laugh, and I don't see anybody who's using it as allegory. The guy I love right now is Guillermo del Toro. I'd love to make a film like Pan's Labyrinth."

"I make sure that they photograph everything they do. And they have to have a portfolio to graduate. You know, there’s no formula for success out there, but what works is: learn how [to photograph], photograph everything you do and you put those photographs in front of people that can help hire you. That works."

"Love stories—yeah, there’s something about them. I cry when somebody does something good for somebody, not something horrible. I avoid all the horrible stuff. But to me, when a human being is sincerely generous, or kind or overly helpful to another human being, that’s when I tear up. I just love the idea of love."

"I love CGI when it’s done well. It may sound strange coming from me, because if you watch my stuff in movies it’s happening right in front of you, but I wish we had CGI back then to solve some problems. Getting rid of an edge or enhancing stuff, which is what they have today. I love it when it’s done well."

"Tom Savini Explains The Enduring Appeal of Zombies, In Film and On TV (March 14, 2014)"

"I wanted to be an actor or be a director since I was a very small child. I mean, my mother went into labor at a movie theater. There were, like, four movie theaters around us when I was growing up in Austin. Movies became my babysitter. I think I saw more films than I saw reality. Then I noticed something when I was in my late teens that really made my thinking shift in what I wanted to do with film. When I was watching a film as a young man, there would be a second or two when I drifted outside of myself. I noticed how for a moment, in the image and music and train of information, I was traveling through the film, leaving myself. And I knew that was something I wanted to do. I wanted to see how long I could make that feeling go on—if I could take someone outside themselves, outside their body for a minute, five minutes, maybe even 80 minutes, 90 minutes."

"I'm not sure what this means and if it can be replicated, but we did something very unique and none of it was planned. There wasn't a $20 million marketing budget designed to make this; it just happened. The audience took the movie for its own and decided to make it an event, and that's pretty awesome. And by the way, there were people who liked the movie so much they were defending the film against people who were thrashing it. Completely mind-blowing. I've never had that happen, either."

"We do these movies in six months so there’s going to be some stuff that misses the bar in terms of looking super polished. We take what we’re doing seriously as if we’re doing one of those things. Also, we just go, “Look, we’re just going to be outlandish and crazy because that’s what these movies are.” They’re intended to be fun. However anybody wants to construe them is up to them. If they want to think that they’re bad and campy, that’s fine. What I’ve found in general though is the true fans that love these movies, they love them because they are what they are."

"The interesting part about making these films is that it’s half directing, and half really being a leader, because you have such little time to shoot such a big concept. It’s really like a war against time, and your crew is your platoon. You’re going as hard and as fast as you can to try to get everything on screen."

"I prefer character-driven stuff. I am an actor and I come from theater and I love creating a scene and working with actors as opposed as opposed to working with CGI. But there is some fun to be had with the B-movie monster movies as well especially today because they are so self-aware, you can have a lot of fun. But I definitely prefer the more straightforward horror."

"Book-to-screen adaptations must always strive for two things: First, you must find a way to tell the broad story of the original plot; second, you must somehow reflect the spirit and texture of the novel—that is, you must transform a lot of words into a few pictures. All those digressions, inner monologues, thought processes, turns of phrase, all those word pictures, and especially all that un-photographable stuff that made the novel so delicious, must somehow be represented onscreen by use of the filmmaker's tools: moving pictures, dialogue and performance, sets, costumes, music and all the other tricks of the trade. That's the process a writer must go through to create a successful blueprint for a film."

"As a director, you must keep your sense of humor, your patience and, most of all, your ability to funnel the collective energies of a large group of creative people. For that, you must stay well-hydrated, well-fed, and well-rested. It's also crucial that you have a top-notch ensemble."

"I think it’s important for anyone who takes cinema seriously not to limit yourself to just optimistic or happy movies. I think that’s a problem. You’ve got to be willing to let the art of cinema take you into some darker places if you’re going to make full use of it. There are some people who shouldn’t watch horror films, and I’m all right with that. It’s not about putting something evil in the world. It’s about reckoning with evil. We don’t need any more evil in the world. We need a lot more reckoning with it."

"If you’re doing it right, you’re not asking the audience to buy into your point of view at all. If you’re doing it right, you’re asking the audience to accept the character’s point of view as the character’s point of view. That can be anything. We’ve all watched hundreds of movies from characters’ points of view that are not our own. That’s part of the gift movies give us."

"I had a lot of growing pains adjusting to the comic book writing format. The whole writing process just didn’t make sense to me. I had to somehow construct each panel just by describing it? But how many panels to a page? How much dialogue should be in each panel? How much time should pass between each panel? All these sorts of things were mind-boggling to me. By the end of writing the script, I sort of figured out some of my mistakes."

"I think whenever you write something you want people to like it. The best way to do that, usually, is to write what you think is good. That’s basically what everyone tries to do… just to write what they think is good. Part of that is staying true to the characters and the world (which makes it a kids show by it’s design)... and part of that is introducing deeper concepts that we, as writers, are curious about exploring (which makes it more interesting for adults)."

"I got the idea [for Earthlings] because I was filming some public service announcements. It was mostly domestic animals, dogs and cats, and when they were killed on the street or euthanized in the shelters, they were put into this room that resembles a large refrigerator. But when I saw them piled up in there, it suddenly made me think of meat in a refrigerator. Even though they looked nothing like meat, there was this parallel – dead animals kept in a fridge – and that made me think of cows and chickens and pigs and eggs and milk, and so on. That was the beginning of Earthlings really, the first spark of inspiration."

"I myself regard the deaf people as superheroes, protectors of the visual language."

"The eye of the deaf sees what is invisible to the eye of the hearing."

"Our diversity is our superpower."

"My deafness is my superpower."

"From the director to the international cast, all of them are from deaf families for generations, while the film industry usually entrusts these roles to audacious interpreters that end up being bad imitators of the Sign language."

"“My first impression was that I had stumbled into the future, but as a linguist I was also instantly fascinated with Japanese and how it has a relationship with sign language. Kanji are usually concepts or ideas and then hiragana acts as a bridge for communication It’s the same with sign language: We use fingerspelling (spelling out the alphabet with your hands) between our conceptual signs."

"I’ve often felt visual communicators have superhero-like qualities."

"You can see the existence of these beautiful signed languages which are incredibly visual, and they require space, they require space to grow."

"Italian language is not just sonore. It is also visual."

"Sign Gene's director (Emilio Insolera) met up with Tokyo Journal in Shibuya whilst en route to the NHK studios. The director turns out to be a lively character, one, perhaps unsurprisingly, with a sense for physical and situational humor."

"The greatest merit of Sign Gene is to break the veil that separates the audiences from the mysterious and fascinating world of the deaf, just as it did at the party in the Odeon auditorium, all united from that silent toast, from that speaking animatedly without voice, from that mimic joy in which we – incapable of communicating – were the only outsiders, the unique dis/ables, mutes like fishes in a very capable and alien society. Yes, if wanted to subvert, Insolera made the centerpiece."

"Emilio Insolera’s “Sign Gene” gave the world its first deaf superheroes. But after writing, directing, producing and starring in the film himself, you might argue that Insolera is the one with the superpowers."

"Insolera’s efforts are equal to that of any Marvel star."

"I really love seeing things go sour, because that’s the way dread creeps into life. A lot of horror films start with a great shock scene. I grew up on that model and it’s great fun, but very perversely, I’m interested in setting up something else, where you’re really engaged with the humanity of the characters — you could be in a normal drama with its own set of problems — and then something else develops. I like this philosophical question: what comes first, reality or your interpretation of it? However interesting that is, and whether it fits in with the horror genre, I don’t know, but I think it makes perfect sense."

"I consider myself very sentimental, very sensitive, but obviously my outward appearance is a bit scruffy-haired, and I have a general tendency toward snarling at people, and a sort of misanthropic nature. Maybe that is what people actually read. I do actually believe that misanthropy and sensitivity go hand in hand, because I have a tremendous disappointment in the ways of the world."

"I love filmmaking when fate is a part of the process and you are dependent on the laws of physics and the elements to get a single moment that transports or in some way creates an illusion even for a moment. I think that is tremendous fun and what I think filmmaking is, catching lightning in a bottle. I feel like we are so used to CGI now and thank god because it is a wonderful tool, but there is an element of everything you are looking at has been created in the comfort of a studio. I want to return to a world where I can celebrate when you are really interacting with the world."

"My first exposure to Batman as a character was Batman the TV series. But honestly, I didn’t know it was supposed to be a parody or campy. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Of course, I was 5 at the time. But all in one fell swoop, I became an instant super hero fan. Later on, as I got older and started reading more comics and getting into the super hero scene, I realized that the Batman show was kind of a comedy. I was reading Neal Adams comics and thinking, "Batman is kind of cooler than that show, he’s kind of scary and mysterious." So my perception of Batman changed over time, and then I went through the periods with Frank Miller and the Tim Burton movies. So now I’ve got these warring Batmans in my head. I still love the Adam West/Batman show. I still love the Neal Adams take on Batman comics. I still love The Dark Knight. All of these things totally contradict each other, and yet it’s fine to me. I’ve said it over and over again, Batman as a character is such a strong concept, he’s the kind of character that you can take him in any number of ways and it still feels right."

"I wish I had the answer to that, because if I knew how to create an instantly popular character like that, I would do more of them. It’s weird to me because, on one hand, she’s appealing, but you look at her and she’s not exactly a good role model for girls. And in the past, we have definitely explored some of the darker edges of her story. She was kind of in an on-going abusive relationship with the Joker. So it is weird but maybe a lot of her appeal, at least recently, is because they have separated her from the Joker in comics. She’s become her own standalone character and definitely not in an abusive relationship with the Joker anymore. I guess that is somewhat empowering and people can relate to it. But truthfully, she was a really, really popular character even before all this. I think part of it is probably, to pat my own back, design. She was a really simple basic character in red and black, cute face, cute figure, one and done. So that definitely has to be a part of it."

"I love all the series I’ve done pretty much equally.I haven’t done a single series that I have been embarrassed by. Some of the movies are better than others."

"I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries."

"Shortly after the United States entered World War Two, Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall summoned Frank Capra, the Hollywood director, and asked him to prepare a series of orientation films for viewing by American troops. When Capra demurred on the grounds that he had never made a documentary before, Marshall retorted: "Capra, I have never been Chief of Staff before. Thousands of young Americans have never had their legs shot off before. Boys are commanding ships today, who a year ago had never seen the ocean before." The director apologized, and promised "The best damned documentary films ever made.""

"The films subsequently produced for the Army by Capra and his team survive as classics of wartime cinematic propaganda- a remarkable accomplishment, in retrospect, since each script had to be approved by some fifty military and civilian agencies in Washington. One of the primary objectives of the series was to combat the isolationist sentiments that lingered in the United States, and with this in mind the seven core films that Capra directed were given the collective title Why We Fight. President Franklin Roosevelt was so impressed by the first of these documentaries that he urged it to be shown in public theaters as well as to recruits. This was done, and Prelude to War went on to win an Academy Award as the best documentary of 1942. During the course of World War Two, the Why We Fight films were required viewing for millions of American soldiers. The series was also distributed abroad, with soundtracks in French, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese."

"To be inspired with the will to win, Capra told his associates as they embarked on this work, Americans needed to be shown that they were fighting for the existence of their country, and at the same time were carrying the "torch of freedom" for a better postwar world- a world in which conquest, exploitation, and economic evils had been eliminated, and peace and democracy prevailed. This seemed a clear line, and a familiar one to anyone who recalled the idealistic Allied propaganda of World War One."

"It could be that today's conservative movement remains in thrall to the same narrative that has defined its attitude toward film and the arts for decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60s and '70s, this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemably liberal institution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early 20th century up through the '40s, '50s and into the mid-'60s]. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, and major stars like John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Charlton Heston. These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and John Huston, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Spencer Tracy. The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences. As the younger, more left-leaning "New Hollywood" generation swept into the industry in the late '60s and '70s, this older group of Hollywood conservatives faded away, never to be replaced. Except for a brief period in the '80s when the Reagan Presidency led to a conservative reengagement with film—with popular stars like Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making macho, patriotic action films—conservatives appeared to abandon popular culture altogether. In the wake of this retreat, conservative failure to engage with Hollywood now appears to have been recast by today's East Coast conservative establishment into a generalized opposition toward film and popular culture itself. In the early '90s, conservative film critic Michael Medved codified this oppositional feeling toward Hollywood in his best-selling book Hollywood vs. America."

"$175,000 will get the bridge completely restored and will give us a place to put it, That will get us at least a few of the computers going. And up until now, everybody’s been doing everything for free—I don't want people going broke on this. Fandom is fandom, but people have to eat and live."

"I got those, Data’s chair and console, the side walls, and some panels from Vegas. And though I didn’t know I'd have the entire bridge someday, I knew they were an invaluable history of Trek, I couldn't allow it to bring me down. I spent almost a year trying to convince people to help me. If worst came to worst it could go to a rich guy’s house but then no one would see it. Once this happened, that's how this bridge got forgotten about—people changed hands, people got fired, I didn't know if he had standing assembled walls or what, My whole thing was: this is good, it's great to have a dream, but it’s great to have your feet on the floor too. They said: ‘You have to do something. This can't remain in this condition."

"Having been a "Star Wars" fan my whole life, and having spent most of my life on the other side of the curb and in that fandom, it softens the blow a little bit. I'm aware through my own experience that, first of all, the fans are so passionate, they care so deeply — sometimes they care very violently at me on Twitter. But it's because they care about these things, and it hurts when you're expecting something specific and you don't get it from something that you love. It always hurts, so I don't take it personally if a fan reacts negatively and lashes out on me on Twitter. That's fine. It's my job to be there for that."

"I think the important thing is maybe allow the fans to see what they want to see. We don't want to put anyone into a corner where it's like—So other people feel like they're not represented."

"It was exciting. The idea of having this character, who had been so much to so many people. And none of that was based on his sexual orientation, And just to reveal that he is a gay man, and that in no way changes his relationships with any of these people, anything that he’s done. Sometimes it’s amazing to have the stories where the character is finding themselves, but then it’s also incredibly important to have the stories where this character is fully formed, and he’s a gay man, and he’s doing amazing things. And he’s flawed, and he has his own problems. That was why I loved the idea of having Shiro be our representation."

"It was something that came up right from the get-go, but as you know, from the beginning we kind of thought we were going to kill Shiro at one point. And so we’re like, ‘Y’know what? We don’t really want to kill off our gay representation. Maybe we’ll find it somewhere else.’ But then we found out pretty soon after that, Shiro wasn’t allowed to die. Well, all right, we go back to plan one and yeah, it just took us a little while to get to the point in the story where we were able to reveal it. But he was kind of always in the works to be our [gay] representation. It’s a very normal part of his life and it’s just a very normal part of our story. It wasn’t supposed to be, like, scandalous or surprising or-- It’s just daily life. And I think we kind of try to envision a world where all of those things are just normal and accepted and people don’t freak out about them. It doesn’t change who he is at all."

"He is Shiro’s significant other, They weren’t married yet, but that’s the road they were going down Him being gay was just something that we had always wanted to do with him from early on."

"Anna and Elsa's parents didn't die. Yes, there was a shipwreck, but they were at sea a little bit longer than we think they were because the mother was pregnant, and she gave birth on the boat, to a little boy. They get shipwrecked, and somehow they really washed way far away from the Scandinavian waters, and they end up in the jungle. They end up building a tree house and a leopard kills them, so their baby boy is raised by gorillas."

"A wedding. According to Chris, they didn't die on the boat. They got washed up on a shore in a jungle island. The queen gave birth to a baby boy. They build a treehouse. They get eaten by a leopard..."

"A wedding. According to Chris, they didn't die on the boat. They got washed up on a shore in a jungle island. The queen gave birth to a baby boy. They build a treehouse. They get eaten by a leopard..."

"10 February 2014 in response to "Where were the King and Queen planning to go when they lost their lives out at sea?" speaking of Chris Buck"

"What Jim wanted to do, and it was totally his vision, was to get back to the darkness of the original Grimm’s fairy tales. He thought it was fine to scare children. He didn’t think it was healthy for children to always feel safe."

"I helped him direct the movie, but he had the vision. It was because of Jim not accepting the impossible and as a result he would work harder than anybody I’ve ever known because he was the one who led the way by working harder. None of us could say no because he always worked harder than us. When you say special, I think that really is the memory that I have, the incredible upward hill journey that we had to do every single day. It was very tough."

"I’m not involved in the slightest. I say “godspeed.” I am not involved. Nobody’s mentioned it in any way to me whatsoever. I’ll be very curious to see it."

"It seems Mr. Mark Saltzman was asked if Bert & Ernie are gay. It’s fine that he feels they are. They’re not, of course. But why that question? Does it really matter? Why the need to define people as only gay? There’s much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness."

"What I don't like is describing Jim as that he was this wonderful, warm, sweet man because, yes he was a wonderful, warm, sweet man – but he was also the strongest man I ever met in character. He was very tough. He worked like a sonofabitch. He could get cranky and he got snarky at times. He would rarely get angry. I've seen him angry only about three times in my life. He was a very complex guy, but he was that noble spirit."

"Jim didn't have a script – he didn't work that normal way. He wanted to have a laboratory of textures and designs and ideas and rehearsals. He had a story – but he wanted the script to work in conjunction with the laboratory of creating the characters."

"This is Jim – he said, "Would you direct Dark Crystal with me?" and I said, "Why? I don't know how to direct. You could do it yourself. Why would you want me to direct with you?" He said, "Because it would be better." And that's all that mattered. He didn't care about the credit. He knew that he had some weaknesses and he felt that I had some strengths, and so we worked together that way."

"It was not smooth at all, and it was because of me, not because of Jim. Jim should have ****in' fired me several times. Jim was extraordinarily patient. I was a young guy who wanted to make his mark in the world, and if I was the co-director, by God why wasn't I attending more meetings and why didn't I get more say in things? I had a problem of self-esteem and it came through that way. It was difficult for Jim, not for me. It was frustrating for me, but that was an unhealthy frustration. It worked because Jim was patient."

"Because Launchpad appeared in 'DuckTales' and we used Roboduck as the Superman character, the hero who gets all the glory as opposed to Darkwing, fans try to connect the two realities, They are two different universes in my book. We work in the alternate Duckiverse."

"Representative Tulsi Gabbard has made reforming United States foreign policy, particularly ending what she calls “regime change wars” and the “new Cold War and nuclear arms race,” central to her 2020 presidential campaign. She is virtually the only presidential candidate warning of the specter of nuclear war. At a CNN town hall at South By Southwest on March 10, Gabbard contended, “We are in a situation today where we, here in the United States and the world, are at a greater risk of nuclear catastrophe than ever before in history.”"

"Yet, the establishment news media is largely uninterested in listening to Gabbard attempt to persuade voters that the U.S. should quit waging wars to overthrow governments."

"Gabbard’s rhetoric infuriates Rogin, Keilar, and Bash because it strays from their script for what is acceptable debate on U.S. foreign policy. Their questions, and Rogin’s statements, are designed to shame her for her disloyalty to the foreign policy establishment. However, the reality is while these pundits engage in theoretical discussion on television—and use real Syrian people as props to attack dissenting politicians— Gabbard’s reservations toward war are based on actual experience and a recognition of the many times in which the U.S. meddled in countries only to face serious blowback later."

"Most progressives are not as outspoken against U.S. military interventions or what she (Tulsi Gabbard) refers to as “regime change wars.” She witnessed the impact of regime change on the people of Iraq, as well as U.S. troops, and that inspired her to talk more about the human cost of war and challenge the military industrial-complex."

"Gabbard opposes what she calls a “genocidal war” in Yemen, and she is one of the few representatives, who has worked to pass a war powers resolution in the House to end U.S. military involvement since Congress never authorized the war."

"Gabbard has persistently called attention to the war in Syria. She traveled to Aleppo and Damascus in January 2017 to see some of the devastation Syrians have endured since 2011. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad invited her to a meeting, and she accepted. “Originally, I had no intention of meeting with Assad, but when given the opportunity, I felt it was important to take it. I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there’s a chance it can help bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much suffering,” Gabbard declared. Supporters of the Syrian war—the same people who do not want President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. troops—seized upon Gabbard’s meeting with Assad to discredit her, and it has fueled the backlash among Western media pundits to her decision to run for president. Yet, in spite of a smear campaign encouraged by the political establishment, Gabbard has not backed down from protesting U.S. support for terrorists in Syria."

"Establishment Democrats are engaged in a concerted effort to smear and undermine journalism that examines any of their preferred 2020 presidential candidates. The effort aims to enforce conformity in the same manner that Democratic Party leaders coerced supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders into lining up behind Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. The most egregious example is the targeting of award-winning investigative journalist David Sirota, who produced a comprehensive report on former Democratic Representative Beto O’Rourke’s congressional voting record. Four articles were published on January 3 by liberal pundits... specifically singled out Sirota’s journalism, despite the fact that the second largest newspaper in Texas, the Houston Chronicle, published an editorial recognizing he had raised valid questions about the state’s oil economy."

"Abby Martin and Michael Prysner... produce the weekly show, “The Empire Files.” During the interview, they highlight the make-up of the opposition in Venezuela. They share details about the violence they witnessed while on the ground. Both talk about the left-wing Chavism movement’s ability to withstand the opposition...[and] speak about the engagement of Venezuelans, especially lower class citizens, in participatory democracy. They outline what is truly going on with private media companies in Venezuela that are sowing chaos. They also address what they believed about the Venezuelan government under President Nicolás Maduro prior to their trip and how their perspectives shifted."

"According to Martin, opposition figures mobbed them and gave instructions to film what the government does but not what is done by the opposition. They pressured Martin and Prysner to film what is done by the government and in return the opposition would protect them..."

"Prysner suggested it [shortages of essentials] is clear it is the result of a targeted campaign because specific things are missing from shelves... The Venezuelan opposition would like to plunge the country further into chaos, win power, and then allow financial corporations to take over."

"You got me mad now"

"What the hell do you boys think that this here is, fucking Fairyland? Pulling on your wee-wees like a pack of fucking fruits?"

"Let us remember these timeless words: Ass♂we♂can."

"I want to tell all my fans at Nico Nico to live their life without any judgments, and be adventurous. When opportunity comes, put work into your faith, and don't be afraid to go out and live life. Whatever your sexuality is - gay, straight, boy, girl - go have fun. That's what life is all about. And live a life of yugamineena."

"Yeah, it certainly is cum alright, at least it smells like it."

"We called them wrecks... And the great mystery in the sky does not allow you to have all that fun unless you have some wrecks."

"For me, the code of the West is simple. You never let a friend down... ever. And you don't go after your enemies if they leave you alone. You can live a long time on those two things."

"Jim Ed Love is a very funny name for a man who likes nothing better than to see a cowboy get what little he's got get kicked out by a rawboned, walleyed, bucking, ground-stopping bronc."

"I could see... that there was healed-over spur marks in that old pony's shoulder. That could mean just one thing. Trouble. I had worked for outfits that gave spoiled horses like that one away just to keep from crippling up good cowboys."

"He ain't no cowboy, this Ed Love, but he is a cowman. ...He can dicker for six days and nights for one-fourth cent cent a pound for his beef. He can get more work from and give less pay to a cowboy than anybody I ever saw."

"Now, to make horse breaking easy you need two cowboys—one on the bronc and one on a gentle, well-broke horse. This way if the bronc tries to cut your leg off on a barbwire fence or jump off a bluff, your partner can ride in front of him or gather up your hackamore reigns."

"He looked just like a groundhog coming up for air when he crawled out of his bedroll in the morning, and he didn't look a hell of a lot better now... His legs was bowed so bad that if you was to straighten them up he would be twice as tall."

"I had my right hand around that saddle horn like it was the doorknob to heaven's gate, and my right elbow was crimped down over my hipbone like a vise. I was pulling on the them hackamore reigns like I was dragging a pot of gold out of a deep well. But it just didn't do any good. That son of a... bogged his head and jumped way off toward the Arizona border and came down hard on his front legs, driving them in the ground plumb to bedrock, the way it felt to me. The next jump was just as high and just as long, but when he drove into the ground again he was headed for the Texas border, and in between that old roan horse was sure tearing hell out of New Mexico."

"It was about three miles by bird travel to the gate opening into home pasture. That was where Old Fooler was headed. He was still bucking, and I could see those stirrups clanging together over his back. Then he disappeared over the rise and there wasn't a thing to keep me company but one little white cloud about a thousand miles off over the northern mountains. I saw that cloud when I looked up at the sky and asked the Lord to please not let me kill myself and to give me the wings of an angel so I could fly after that horse and break his ...dam neck."

"One from the Heart for... My wife Pat, my number one critic, who also suffered safely through all those long decades of my taking notes, thinking and figuring on Bluefeather Fellini, and then the five and a half years of actually writing it down. ...Also, much appreciation for the painting you created for the cover."

"One from the Heart for... , the great director who taught me to feel the color, see the sound, and hear the unsaid in such great films as LaStrada, LaDolceVita, and 81/2."

"One from the Heart for... Those deeply loved and influential amigos and amigas who have gone on the "Long Adios", including my mother, Hazel, who taught me to read, and love it, before I started school. Wiley (Big Boy) Hittson, whose brief life of daring courage, total loyalty and sudden shocking death by gunfire inspired my novel TheHighLoCountry. Luz Martinez, the "Santero" who followed me to Taos and carved cedarwood into permanent beauty and dignity. Woody Crumbo, the great pioneer Pottawatomie Indian artist, who became my artistic and spiritual mentor and whose spirit is in every chapter of this book. And finally, our little dog Foxy..."

"It was a time of youthful jubilation, and Bluefeather Fellini—the chosen one—knew that never, never, never before had anyone been so blessed. In just a few days, they would be rich..."

"For decades the old prospector had walked the sizzling southwestern deserts, climbed the jagged mountains, chewed the dust, dodged the blizzards without complaint or defeat."

"He was always grinding on forward... Grinder... observed Bluefeather through slit, knowing eyes. The quality he looked for was definitely there. It... was obvious in the alert, almost regal, manner he carried his head and the way he climbed the Taos mountains with a long-stepped, but smooth, attacking stride. ...Bluefeather Fellini was from the people of yearning. Whenever one walks or rides with yearners, the world becomes generous with great gifts of almost ceaseless adventure—and makes one pay terrible prices for the ultimate joys. Grinder knew this... for he was a grinder himself."

"This was the most difficult book I have ever put together. No matter how I checked out some of the wild stories—wild by their locale, time of occurrence and nature of her business—they were not only unutterably true, but actually understated in some cases."

"I will now hope for the near impossible: that the essence of her bravery, the dedication and suffering she afforded those she loved, and above all that indomitable will to have a good laugh no matter where the stones fell, will be as indelible to the reader as they are to me."

"The story of Silver City Millie is the story of one woman's personal tragedies and triumphs as an orphan, a Harvey Girl waitress on the Santa Fe railroad, a prostitute with innumerable paramours, and a highly successful bordello businesswoman. Millie broke the mold in so many ways, and yet her life story of survival was not unlike that of thousands of women who went West..."

"Silver City Millie contains sordid details and frank language that will make many readers blush, but before her bawdy, drunken life is condemned, readers must become aware of the full context of prostitution in the American West. It was like motherhood and apple pie. It was expected, condoned, appreciated, and segregated. ...The ratio of men to women in the frontier West was frequently seven to one."

"I was amazed to discover my award-winning racehorse story, "Showdown at Hollywood Park," was a short sequel to the famed "Seabiscuit" story. Also I had two more, over 90 percent true, stories that I slightly fictionalized... "My Pardner" was one of these. ...... loved "My Pardner." He optioned it many times over. ...I traded him "My Pardner" for ' so I could get a Martin Scorsese, ' film made. ...This book brought about the very last conversation I ever had with Peckinpah—two weeks before his untimely death. He was on his way to ... and pressed for time, but promised that on his return he would sign all film rights for "My Pardner" back to me. But... he died, and it never happened."

"THE HORSE (and the mule—which is half horse) had given more to mankind than all the rocket scientists, presidents (all forms), dictators and financial geniuses with all their billions of dollars combined. The horse's hold on mankind, joining in all human glories and foibles, could actually fill many great libraries."

"On Glorietta Mesa south of Santa Fe, I went to work on a cow ranch about three months before my twelfth birthday. Almost everyone—in this time and place—was so poor that it was a common practice for ranchers to loan themselves and/or their hired hands out to help each other—especially with big jobs like branding and roundups, and even fence building. It made survival possible."

"When I was still a teenager, I acquired a small, well-watered (with springs) ranch in northeastern New Mexico. It was located fourteen miles east of the village of Des Moines—which I would later call "Hi-Lo" in my many writings and a major film. ...In those poor struggling days, coyote hides would bring from five to fifteen dollars—a ton of money at the time."

"I was having more trouble putting a rein, a stop, and instilling "rope and cow sense" in this horse than ever before. ...She literally loved and lived to run after the dogs as they ran down one of the smartest creatures ever born. She must have had the ancient genes of some great general's best war horse for she had a true blood lust. Molly loved to watch the dogs' fangs still a freshly caught coyote."

"I left the heart of the Hi-Lo country, and went to Taos. I bought some sub-irrigated land and a house and moved there amongst the founders and old masters of the famed art colony. I also obtained my first Taos horse, Brownie. ...for the thiry dollars I paid Horse Thief Shorty for him, he turned out to be quite a buy. ...Brownie was pretty darn good at everyting, outstanding at none, but a loyal friend all the way. A partner. ...I rank him pretty high for that priceless underrated loyalty. ...I would ride him for pure pleasure. We would move across the great sagebrush desert on top of the west mesa where the Indians held their annual, ancient horseback rabbit hunt."

"The beast of war belches and passes almost endless odors. There is the acrid smell of freshly detonated gunpowder and burnt steel. There is the sweet scent of newly freed blood misting above the dead, dying, and mutilated bodies, little red streams forming pools that begin to turn brownish as they seep into the bruised earth. There is a special combined smell when a shell penetrates, explodes, and sets fire to a tank—a mixture of steel, powder, human flesh, bone, and blood, gasoline and oil, clothing, and stained and torn family photos. There is the unforgettable stench of bodies long past the first discovery of flies. This is a forever odor. So is the scent of villages, towns, and cities burning."

"Jiggs loved playing his old Victrola in the early evening and often asked Ty to sit with him and listen. The music wasn't always what Ty was exactly interested in, but he listened to please his grandfather. ...Accidentally he found out that reading was allowed while listening to great music. His grandparents had read to him regularly and insisted that Ty read some of the classics."

"Jiggs, with his sharp, dark eyes smiling from a weather-seared face, used to say, "I tell you what, son, if a man is real lucky he'll find that what he wants to do is what he likes to do. That is, of course, if he's lucky enough to take the time to discover it.""

"As beginning buddies do, Ty had casually mentioned that he'd overheard his grandfather saying to his grandmother, "That Ty is always running for the far horizon, but it keeps moving ahead of him," and Martha had answered as always in his favor, "Yes he is. And someday he'll catch it, and it'll be downhill from then on.""

"Several times, Emilio had taken Ty to the mountains to fish for trout. ...The gurgling, forever-twisting little snowmelts coursing, playing, singing over millions of differently shaped stones deeply fascinated a young man from the dry, flat plains of Lea County. It was a gift of beauty sparkling in the sunlight to out glimmer all the diamonds in the world. ...He would have wagered on it. Emilio had introduced him to a ceaseless wonder. ...and the fishing was almost as exciting. He could never stop marveling that these small streams could be home to foot-long brown and rainbow trout."

"Emilio said "I'm swearing you to secrecy, amigo, and I feel guilty for telling you... There is a secret room in our basement where both mom and dad go to worship in Jewish. They even light the menorah there during Hanukahh." Ty made a zipping motion over his mouth and said, "It stays here, amigo.""

"I can see why the two men liked and admired each other. Max had been a cowboy, a soldier, a smuggler, a painter, and, most importantly, a storyteller. Sam had been a would-be cowboy, a soldier, a would-be smuggler, a director, and, most importantly, a storyteller. They were roughly the same age when they met up early in 1962, and they both achieved success in their respective fields—Peckinpah in film, Evans in literature—within a few years of each other. Perhaps Sam filled the void that the death of Big Boy Hittson... created for Max after Big Boy was shot by his younger brother in the late 1940s..."

"Max was born in Ropes, Texas, in 1924. Not long afterwards, Hazel and W. B., founded a town called Humble City in New Mexico's far southeastern Lea County. He left here for the Hi-Lo country of northeastern New Mexico when he was about twelve years old. An infantry veteran of World War II combat, he tackled a number of career options before... the 1960 publication of his breakthrough novel, The Rounders..."

"A new documentary about his life, Ol’ Max Evans: The First Thousand Years... Made by Lorene Mills, Paul Barnes, and David Leach... paints a lively portrait... a man who worked as a cowboy, rancher, soldier, miner, con man, painter, mystic, and writer. He is also a seeker and a survivor. The monkey business didn’t kill him. Neither did the bottle, D-Day, bad reviews, a busted bank account, or the various men who bested him in windswept barrooms or dusty desert streets. He’s written about 30 published works (he tries to count them up, but can’t quite get the sum right), seen two film adaptations come out of two of those works, rubbed shoulders with the Hollywood likes of and , and earned a number of literary awards."

"In the wondrous brew that makes up life, that novel, The Rounders, created a bittersweet effect on Max Evans' life. It made his reputation. Despite a lifetime of writing perhaps the finest literature ever written about life in the West, it is still this one book about two cowboys who can't seem to win but refuse to lose that people tend to remember best. It brought Max his first real money, his first real fame, his first movie."

"Max Evans was once an eleven-year-old cowboy... in the foothills of New Mexico. For years he lived the life, roped the calves, rode the horses, drank the booze, fought the fights. He spent his nights reading in the bunkhouse too. And then he taught himself to be an artist, and later he taught himself to be a novelist. Literature about the real West has never been the same..."

"[O]ne of [my] students said his father was a Santa Fe cop who had arrested Max for "cutting down all the stop signs in Santa Fe." Max later admitted going on a... mission... as a way of avoiding getting more traffic tickets... As he put it, "Hell, I didn't get more than half of them cut down before they caught me.""

"I like pistachio and mint chip. So I'm a green ice cream kind of guy."

"The top critics on @RottenTomatoes are OVERWHELMINGLY white and male. The newest report from @Inclusionists @USC shows a vast underrepresentation of diverse voices"

"Making or writing a movie, to me, is like building a watch because a watch is so small and you only can fit so many things inside it that all the pieces really do need to work together."

"I lead a very interesting life. Every day there is something very different, enticing, and exciting that happens to me or around me. I am into acting and directing for the stage and screen, and all human triumph and failure, our planet Earth, long distance open ocean sailing, ecology, hydrology, astrophysics, geology, botany, and history. Part of my lifestyle you should all remember is having fun. Being funny is a big part of it. After all, if one is in tune, funny is the tune to play. Giving laughter is more fun than giving advice. Giving laughter while giving advice is the jackpot."

"I believe that one is only truly free when learning, and one can only learn when one is free."

"People would call us "dirty Mexicans." I remember going to a movie in Reedly where we weren't allowed to sit in the Anglo section. We were told by the ushers to sit with the rest of the Mexicans, because this section was reserved for whites. Those are things you never forget."

"We were and still are recreating our own reality. Our vision is that we have been a hard working, courageous people. There have been three prevalent images of the chicano in this country— 1) the pachuco, a violent, urban vato loco; 2) the farmworker, a passive peon, Don Juan-Yaqui brujo type; and 3) el Spanish grandee or Latin lover type."

"My parents were migrant farm workers who moved between Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. I was born in Delano and that's where the ranch was. For my dad, this was the high point of his life. The whole family was very proud of the fact that he had a ranch and we had family events out there. When we lost it at the end of the war it was a tragedy. We were back on the migrant path, and I remember asking my older brother, "What happened? We used to be rich." And he said, "We weren't rich, we just had the ranch and it wasn't even ours." He was older so he was wise to the fact that the Japanese-Americans had been forced out. I realized with a shock and a sense of guilt that we'd taken over somebody else's ranch and they'd been imprisoned in a camp."

"It was bad enough in 2013, and it's worse now. My approach to political theater is that the way to the mind is through the heart. If you can touch the heart, then people will come to the ideas themselves. The American idea of social equality and human respect has to be constantly defended from generation to generation. What happened to the Japanese is echoed tragically in what's happening to Latinos on the Mexican border. Those are prison camps and in some ways the Trump administration is declaring war on Latin America. It's a struggle, but I'm also an optimist and I know it won't last forever."

"History echoes. We mustn't ignore the past, because we're constantly reliving it. Just like the seasons that these farm workers organize their lives around, it's all a big cycle."

"I ask myself those questions sometimes…But no, I think you're a slave to your own sensibility, and your own artistic desires and dreams, and I'm still motivated by them. I'm certainly not going to wait around for someone from Hollywood to call me. I can't control if anyone's thinking of me, or wants to put me in a movie, I can't control that. So I don't preoccupy myself with that world, because that world's an ever-changing animal, and there are new flavours of the month every month, and you might be one, one month, and then not the next. I'm blessed that I've been in that game in my life, but what I'm concerned with on a daily level is what I'm interested in."

"I'm American completely, and I think I appreciate America more than a lot of Americans do…In fact I know I do. Because America has offered me the freedoms that were taken away from me in Cuba, and so I have an enormous appreciation and respect and gratitude for that country, and I value what it stands for."

"I was born in Havana and my family left when I was five-and-a-half. I remember the transition and some memories of being in Havana. I tried to analyze this and I think all exiles who have to leave a country you love, develop a profound nostalgia for where you were born but can no longer be there – like an impossible love. You protect those memories and don’t take them for granted. It’s different for someone who grew up and still lives in the same city because they do take their memories for granted. For me, I’m very nostalgic – not only about my time in Havana, but my 30 years in Miami Beach. All those memories are pretty vivid and I guard and cherish them. I also use those recollections in my work."

"I find solace in my country’s music, all my life. It’s been a great inspiration to me. In ‘The Lost City,’ the protagonist of the movie is the music. I tried to weave the elements of the Cuban culture, and historical elements that happened at that time. [It’s] a very classical film in a way, the structure using a family as a microcosm of what is going on in the society, brothers against brothers politically, a father trying to keep his family together, impossible love: You can love her but you can’t be with her, which is the relationship of every exile in the world with his home country."

"I have been blessed that I wasn't pigeonholed into that. Those roles didn't come to me because I didn't have an accent. They'd ask, 'Couldn't you do it a little more feisty, fiery, Latin.' I'd respond with, 'I'm sorry, were you getting Jewish fire? Because I am Latin.' Even though I am very tied to and close to my heritage, I learned Spanish in college, I didn't grow up with it. Growing up in South Texas is different from Miami or L.A. where it is a necessity to speak Spanish."

"It’s a myth that you can’t have it all…When I was younger, I got some great advice: you can have it all—just maybe not all at the same time…That doesn’t mean you should stop trying to balance everything and strive to be the best you can be every day."

"Fight against typecasting? All the time. There’s a truth in the stereotype, that’s why it becomes a stereotype but the problem starts when it’s the only thing you see. When it comes to Latinos in the US, the truth is they [Americans] know very little about us."

"The stereotypical usage of any culture, any ethnicity, is based on fact or truth. The difficulty is that that’s the only fact and truth that they use. So therefore, it becomes, “Oh, everyone’s like that,” and everyone isn’t like that. Stereotypes are stereotypes. They’re just one-dimensional characterizations of what the person who’s depicted represents, and that’s the difficulty of what I learned as I moved older into the late ‘50s, early ‘60s, and I was 13, 14…"

"We must stop using the word “race” as a cultural determinant and start using it for what it really is. It is a unifying word. There’s no two ways around it. The Caucasian people will have to accept the fact that the changes of diversity on the planet are constant, and that we propagate ourselves at a higher rate. So as far as I’m concerned, people, come to terms with it. You want to really understand the future? You’re going to have to understand that there’s only one race, and that’s the human race. Period."

"My life has been a privilege. I come from a very humble family. No one in my family was an artist or worked in film…I’m not special. I completely understand that what I did, anyone can do it … I learned to do the things I love to do when I didn’t want to do them."

"I don't eat meat, fish or dairy, but I love fake bacon. It's the best of both worlds."

"Do I like women sexually? Yeah, I do. Totally. I have always considered myself bisexual. I love a woman's body. I think a woman and a woman together are beautiful, just as a man and a woman together are beautiful. Being with a woman is like exploring your own body, but through someone else."

"Consider the fondness with which people look back on the actress Drew Barrymore’s appearance on the David Letterman Show in April 1995: 12 April was Letterman’s birthday and Barrymore was on the show, describing – among other things – her recent fondness for nude dancing. Although 20 years old at the time Barrymore spent the interview playing by turns the role of a confident sexual woman and a naughty little schoolgirl."

"I did not, but that’s just my experience. I know a lot of people who do, and that’s where the burden of representation comes in. I’m sitting here telling my specific story, but though I wasn’t comfortable with that, there are thousands of people who are, or thousands who don’t have access to the funds to have surgery."

"The ‘pretty privilege’ can give you access to spaces, just like your able body gives you access. But it makes impossible beauty standards for many other trans girls who are struggling with that right now."

"My grandmother gets who I am, so when you ask me about people who don’t understand, or people who are on their bully pulpits saying you shouldn’t accept people, I’m like: “What’s happened to you that, of all the things you can talk about, of all the injustices in the world, the one thing you want to concentrate on is trans people living their truth? How is that harming you and your identity? How I identify has nothing to do with you, and how you identify has nothing to do with me. Right? So live your life and let me live mine."

"The ball culture is a space started in uptown Manhattan, in Harlem. It was created by a group of black trans women and drag queens who were tired of being pushed out of white drag spaces, where they kept on being upstaged and not given titles. The titles were favored to white queens, white queens who embodied Western culture's idea of beauty and femininity more than the black and brown queens did. So Crystal LaBeija created the scene, and it has become this kind of community space — one where a lot of orphaned people, homeless folk, trans and queer people gather together in houses…"

"The challenge from the beginning was just the diversity and ‘We don’t really know what to do with you’ and ‘There’s not going to be a lot of work for you."

"The lack of predictability with television is something that’s constantly changing what your perception of who you think your character is…"

"Growing up as somebody from another country, really, not what you see on television, I never saw myself in the forefront, ever. We were always in the background."

"You can't allow fear to take over your life. If you do, you'll look back and you'll have regrets. I learned this a long time ago, because I think "my God, my parents came over from another country". It would be really scary for me to move to China and leave everything behind. But I have to remember that fear is something everyone feels and it's natural. You might feel fear 10 times a day in your life, and you have to try to understand it…"

"Everyone has a different format for how they want to reveal what they are thinking, or what they are seeing, to the audience…I just had to let go of the audience and just started thinking about what I wanted to see."

"I think that art helps evaluate some of the psychology of yourself as a child, and to illuminate some things you may never have understood."

"I realized it had everything to do with how I grew up and the interaction I had with my father, that he was somewhat abusive…That made me understand that your body retains not just physical damage, but emotional perforations."

"My overall philosophy was to continue to do good work, to expand my range, and to show that range. I think Hollywood can certainly try to put you into boxes. My entire career has been somewhat of a reflection of my college theater experience, and that was, I did everything. Not only did I do Shakespeare and Molière, but I did Mamet and John Patrick Shanley; contemporary playwrights. I was writing in college, I was directing in college, and when I got to Hollywood, I tried to continue that. I think my first three roles in Hollywood are somewhat indicative of that. You’ve got 'La Bamba,' then 'Stand and Deliver,' then 'Young Guns.' All three films are very different, and all three characters are extremely different."

"Once you wrap your brain around playing your age, it's a very, very positive thing…"

"When I did La Bamba and Stand and Deliver, I marched with Cesar Chavez and fasted with him. Whatever I have directed, I've flipped roles to be more inclusive of ethnic, female and LBGQ performers. This is a flag I've waved from the beginning. I got into the door and kept my foot in it so others could come in behind me."

"I have never felt that Hollywood is mine, and I've never felt like the King of Hollywood. I've always felt lucky to be included... to be invited to the party. I guess because I've never expected my career to be as successful as it has been – I'd still be acting for free in Dallas, Texas if La Bamba had never come along. This has always been my love and my passion – my work – and so to be doing it at the level I'm doing, I'm quite happy…"

"I don’t think anyone understands the Asian Americans’ place amidst this white and black culture. There’s something very specific to being Asian American that other peoples aren’t getting, and we haven’t learned how to define it, even amongst ourselves. We’re the Other. We’re always the Other, we can be here forever and we’re still foreign. We’ve impacted the culture, but third, fourth, fifth, sixth generations and still, you walk down the street and someone will look at you, and you will be foreign. That is what disturbs me."

"To me, it’s always been a matter of: Do your homework and be committed to the extent that you can capture that world. I think I’m open."

"To me the play is never just the play but it’s the whole journey to it."

"The play is my gut's response to stories that have to do with my own bloodline. I think it is a great luxury and adventure to be able to dive into one's own history, one's own lineage, psychology and story, and illumine and at the same time fictionalize it."

"I like working with identities and stories outside of my own experience, so it’s kind of just a necessity…"

"When I’m making work, I’m very much thinking about how there’s a relationship between whatever the play is doing and whatever sort of automatic dismissive mechanisms people have for not wanting to deal with a particular issue. I think all of my plays have some sort of issue that they’re wrestling with that the audience normally doesn’t want to wrestle with. They want to be like, “I know what that is,” and not have to wrestle, because it’s a human instinct not to want to have to be challenged…"

"But theatre is so dominated by men that no matter what kind of sheltered bubble you’re in, you’re going to encounter sexist bullshit. That’s just always going to be an issue…"

"It’s gone away from the thing that I hate, and now it’s more the thing that I don’t know how to do at all, or the thing that’s really hard to do…"

"I would always approach a show from the perspective of what I wanted to say historically, politically and socially. I examine the Asian American experience through my eyes and my perceptions. One thing I can tell you is that people who come to one of my shows, will leave the theater with a totally different perspective of the Asian American male…"

"Much of the time, we’re still looked at as foreigners, despite being here for four or five generations. This gives an overview of our experiences, how varied they are. Really, I want Asian Americans to look at ourselves, to be proud of our heritage. For non-Asians, I just want to inform. . . . Of course, I hope everybody is entertained along the way."

"I try to get everybody to enter my world real quickly. I think the audience starts to see that it’s a person going through a struggle, (and) with each performance piece, the exchange just keeps growing."

"I never interviewed someone so that I could put his story in the film. There is no specific person that I had in mind when I was writing the script. It just seemed that when I was ready to put it together, my head was filled with so many stories and people that it just flowed out. I almost didn’t have to think, just feel."

"… I think maybe the rural influence in my life helped me in a sense, of knowing how to get close to people and talk to them and get my work done. That might have helped some...to try and get to know people and get to know all kinds of people better and investigate their ills and their prejudices and their goods and their evil…"

"That disadvantage sometimes pushes you, you know, if you use it right, because you want to rid yourself of those things that hurt you emotionally when you're coming up."

"I think that the film being made there did an awful lot to dispel that. For the first time there – well, for the first time in the United States – there was a black man riding in that big crane, and he was the boss of a mostly white crew, about 200 people. They looked at this at first in utter amazement and eventually they were proud of me, because I was a local boy. It was very prideful for the Negro kids."

"The boys of my gang – there were six or seven of us – none of them lived to be men, to be 21 years old, except one. All of them are dead from some violence or other, shot or cut to death before they were men, by white society…"

"No wonder you get a Rapp Brown, no wonder you get a Le Roi Jones, no wonder you get a Stokely Carmichael. But you can’t really compare these kids with me, because my time was beyond their time. Black studies, the identification with Africa emerging, has instilled a lot of pride in black kids. But the black kids on the campuses are suddenly asking for separate classes and segregated dormitories. I’ve said to them, ‘Black people have fought and died that you might be here. These white kids will be the next leaders, and will reshape your lives for the next 200 years unless you get in the classrooms with them and help’."

"When I started investigating my relationship to my identity and what my identity means, it was in the context of artists doing identity-based art. I envy and have a love for people who research in great detail history or some moment in history (say, feminist history), and then present it in a way that’s somewhat didactic and matter-of-fact—and, really, with an effort, a sincere effort to throw meaning out to an audience that, maybe, isn’t conscious of this aspect of history. But I’m incredibly suspicious of that impulse, too. I think that it’s all going to be filtered through one’s subjectivity. And my subjectivity—as a young person, as a person at the end of the twentieth century—my subjectivity is of a sexual woman, as a person who makes sometimes really bad decisions. There was no nobility in trying to do research like that, and in trying to filter my sense of self through the lens of a larger history. It was going to get complicated, and I liked the complications that I was finding. "Kara Walker Projecting Fictions: 'Insurrection! Our Tools Were Rudimentary, Yet We Pressed On'" in Art21 (interview originally published on PBS in September 2003, and later republished by Art21 in November 2011)"

"There is I suppose, historically, this seminal moment in the lives of African Americans where one becomes black. Frantz Fanon and everyone talks about it. There is a moment when you go from subject to object and I guess that was my moment…"

"I think there are many open-ended questions that artists can pose and we can ask communities to feel empowered enough to reply, respond, rebel, and feel amazed by the relentless spiraling of thought and image and action that is the artist's profession."

"Expectations on the performance of race and gender are simultaneously high and low, depending on who is looking or asking. I prefer to keep all the options in the air, to try and better understand the conundrum that inequality creates---not just in culture, but internally."

"There’s no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist. It’s not like becoming a doctor or something. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist."

"Being a Chicana is a political, societal, economic and spiritual stance for me because I identify myself with the struggle of Chicanos in this marginal border world of identity—straddling different worlds, the world of the raices in Mexico, the roots, and also the contemporary world of the United States…"

"…If I say I ’m not a Chicana I might as well cut off my arm or my leg. And if I say I ’m not a feminist, well, I might as well cut off my foot. The whole package goes together."

"Remember that the Latino, Chicano, Mexican American writers are following in the footsteps of the African American writers. This has to do with the antepasados, the people who have come before you, who allow you to take the steps you need to take. I always thank the Black writers because they gave me a sense of freedom…"

"Because of that whole kind of philosophy that we Latinos have where your roof caves in, your sink goes out on you, everything bad, but you got to go on with life…Ni modo. No matter what happens to you, you are a survivor. You endure. You keep on going."

"Two of my role models are Ana Castillo and Denise Chavez, who draw on their backgrounds for the work they do. They are fearless. I look at them and know I have no excuse."

"…The play does not purport to be the play of the community—it’s really about that artist’s idiosyncratic voice and what that encounter elicits in them…"

"…I’ve been thinking a lot in terms of how growing up in the context impacts a person’s sense of place in the world. My sense of it. Never quite believing that anything is permanent, uncontested. Never quite landing. You always are a little bit “observing”…"

"…I think, from being an actor, I got the gift of understanding, respecting, and admiring what actors do and the ability to speak in a language that is useful to them…"

"…There are assumptions made about the kind of work Latinos make. I think that remains a challenge because when people are looking for Latino plays, they’re looking for plays of that “type.” Some of that gets defined by your ethnicity…"

"…Historically, musical theatre is a genre that doesn’t have a wide palette; its subjects have been very white. Thank God for Hamilton, (and In the Heights before that) for breaking down some of those doors! Before them, Zoot Suit got slaughtered when it moved to Broadway because it was too sophisticated and ahead of its time. The critics were condescendingly saying: “Don’t these people know that this is not a musical?” Actually, no one said it was a musical; it is a play with music!..."

"As I mature as an artist and human being, what wants to “express” itself through any of the areas I love: acting, directing, writing, singing, teaching and storytelling—all of it has a mind and heart of its own now! My task now is to stay out of the way and let it have its way with me! It’s a “beginner’s mind” with every encounter!"

"…The principal feature of the retablos I have seen and collected is the picture, the diorama, if you will, of someone’s earthly crisis, at which the divine is also present in the figure of a particular saint or Holy Virgin. This simple crudely drawn and painted image is wrought with drama, depicting a moment of powerful tension, pain, and transcendence. I took my cues from these images, and determined to use them as the motif for the moments in my life that defined me…"

"For someone born in the US but whose parents hail from Mexico, there is always a disconnect that happens between the present culture and the one before. Sometimes, it is a flimsy synapse, and sometimes the disconnect can be a chasm…"

"…I learned to violate the rules of time and space—that they can be protracted, or that an entire war can happen in two or three lines of dialogue. I learned from movie montage, how to use language as montage. And for the scene of the judge’s assassination, I learned a lot from Julius Caesar…"

"I’m not a poet, but I do like heightened language that can exist in the theatre. Many plays are sounding more naturalistic these days, more like TV. I still take my cues from Shakespeare. I would rather have the story exist more in the audience’s heads than on a screen."

"We’re in a time when film is so loud and the audience is looking for shocking. It’s hard to convince people that there is an audience out there that wants quiet stories."

"I didn’t think that I was powerless…But I didn’t think that I was powerful."

"It was a gift to have something else that I was passionate about, because at the end of the day, it comes down to the work and the art."

"I would say that I’ve tried to listen to the voice inside…Luckily, from a very early age, I was able to understand that when things don’t feel quite right, that was probably not the role for me."

"Once you're directing, you're kind of in a certain mode, where you're taking whatever is on the page and forming it into the film that you think it might want to be. So whether it's my writing or not, I still try to work with it in the same way."

"For me it was a lot like using music. I used it when I felt that it was right, when I felt like it was time."

"I grew up on the experimental cinema coming out of New York and San Francisco in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s."

"Elephant, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year, is Van Sant's masterpiece."

"I've stayed in touch with Gus over the years, and there have been a couple of things that were looked at, but never quite worked. But I was always interested in working with him again, because he was so instrumental in the kind of actor I am. I worked with him at a really crucial part of my career. I hadn't worked since I was a kid, and then I worked when I was 19 years old. He really changed the way I thought about acting. So I was really eager to work with him again. The process was incredible. In some ways, it was like being back in '95 or whenever it was."

"It was such a privilege to work with Gus — a true luxury for me, as watching ‘My Own Private Idaho’ almost 30 years ago was an eye-opener for me, it made me understand who I am in a delicate way."

"I figure there's two things in a movie: that you are looking at something, you are listening to something. So I like to put a lot of attention into the music and into the recording of the dialogue and into the sets."

"I want to make films that are about visual pleasure for women. Not worry about whether they are in fashion, whether they are politically correct."

"Motion pictures are the most important contribution to literature and art since the invention of fiction."

"Who can tell what the years of the future will bring to the art of the motion picture in view of the amazing progress of the past few years."

"Motion pictures are visualized thought! Do you grasp how different that is from any other of the great arts? The printed word is reserved to those only who can read the language of the publication; music is for the ear that appreciates harmony (not every ear does that), but motion pictures are the universal language, as comprehensive to the American as to the Japanese, as understandable to the African as to the man in the Arctic. Motion pictures are human nature picturized and human nature is the same the world over in every clime."

"Only those who day by day are in the midst of motion pictures can really appreciate the wonderful opportunities for extraordinary things which the camera permits, and although we are still more or less in the beginning of things (I do not like to think we have really touched the great springs of the art as yet) we are struggling, working, studying all the time to better the production."

"Joan the Woman was the most interesting undertaking from the point of view of the artists and the director in the history of the pictures, I believe. It is entirely different from the spectacle features, as it is essentially drama, with the story always first and most important and the spectacular features secondary, although many critics have more than praised the battles and scenes of pageantry."

"The phrases, "happy ending" and "unhappy ending" are misnomers. They belong to an era when the public demanded a saccharine finish to every picture, irrespective of whether or not it was logical. Film-goers of 1933 insist upon a new standard in their screen entertainment. They are not particularly concerned about the ending of a picture so long as it is truthful. Naturally, they do not want a preponderance of depressing themes, but I am firmly convinced that they would rather witness a tragic finish that is truthful and logical than a sugar-coated ending that is not. In The Sign of the Cross the problem of bringing the story to a close is one that would have been difficult a few years ago, when the sugary tradition ruled the film industry. But now that the words "happy" and "unhappy" have been deleted from cinema terminology, our task was simplified, and we gave an ending which appeals to logic and intelligence."

"Every year a new lesson is learned, but the one precept that never fails to be true is that a good picture will always be well received by the public. During 1933 particularly, the public displayed shrewd taste in supporting pictures which have been produced with great care and the finest of production materials."

"Legend rides high with history, but truth follows a lonely trail. I've pursued verity from the museum at Cairo to the smoking tepees of the Cheyennes at Lame Deer, Montana."

"Most people never achieve stardom until they've had at least one good, serious siege of the grand passion. It doesn't hurt a career. It helps. Leatrice Joy was a smart, capable girl, she had beauty and talent and everything to make her a star. But she was marking time. Then she fell in love with John Gilbert and married him. It changed her completely. She seemed to bloom and blossom. And this new radiance showed in her work. She went right on to the top."

"This bouquet is not given lightly. I've worked with many of the screen's greatest stars, and, if I were tendering posies merely to strike a popular chord, I should pick one of them. But Tamiroff is so far ahead of the field as a hard-working artist that he easily claims all awards."

"Actors are born, and every human being is born an actor."

"Sensible married women usually stop acting after the honeymoon—but not their husbands. Young men go on acting parts until they reach maturity, and from there to the grave they're preoccupied with the problem of acting normal. Most men, I'm sorry to say, are "hams" at heart."

"It's not just a good part, it's a great part, but until Miss Goddard passed her screen test as Louvette, I hadn't been able to find a Hollywood actress who both looked it and could play it convincingly. What most of the candidates lacked was imagination."

"This will probably be my last film—it will certainly be my biggest."

"Cecil DeMille is a strict disciplinarian, but he is a great man to work with. DeMille, in handling big crowds and thousands of extras, shows a fine insight into human nature. . . Cecil DeMille shows a great interest and keenness in his work, and for months ahead will plan every move in a big scene with the aid of miniature sets and in discussion with his principal stars. If an actor or other player shows attention to his work, and interest and knowledge of his part, Cecil DeMille is anxious to help him in every way; but he resents the player who has no interest."

"It could be that today's conservative movement remains in thrall to the same narrative that has defined its attitude toward film and the arts for decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60s and '70s, this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemably liberal institution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early 20th century up through the '40s, '50s and into the mid-'60s]. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, and major stars like John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Charlton Heston. These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and John Huston, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Spencer Tracy. The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences. As the younger, more left-leaning "New Hollywood" generation swept into the industry in the late '60s and '70s, this older group of Hollywood conservatives faded away, never to be replaced. Except for a brief period in the '80s when the Reagan Presidency led to a conservative reengagement with film—with popular stars like Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making macho, patriotic action films—conservatives appeared to abandon popular culture altogether. In the wake of this retreat, conservative failure to engage with Hollywood now appears to have been recast by today's East Coast conservative establishment into a generalized opposition toward film and popular culture itself. In the early '90s, conservative film critic Michael Medved codified this oppositional feeling toward Hollywood in his best-selling book Hollywood vs. America."

"No more conservative or patriarchal figure existed in Hollywood, no one more opposed to communism or any permutation or combination thereof, and no fairer one, no one with a greater sense of decency and justice."

"I took a cut in salary to work for DeMille; a lot of actors did; he seemed to expect it as a kind of due. There was only one DeMille and there wasn't an actor in the world who didn't want to work for him just once, however short the salary or tall the corn. I could still picture Angela Lansbury coyly running around in chiffon skivvies, letting arrows fly at the back end of a lion skin tacked on a patio wall in Samson and Delilah. I always thought that looked like good fun."

"He reminded me of the prestige gained in playing a major role in a DeMille picture, which was worth far more than the twenty-five thousand he wanted to pay me. I purposely allowed a frown to cross my brow, just to see if he had still more charm to zap me with. But that was it. He paused to wait for my decision. Did I want the part or not? I wanted it, I told him, even though he would be paying me about one-third my usual salary. What he didn't know was that I'd have done the part for nothing."

"Cecil B. DeMille, the producer-director of Samson and Delilah, always saw all of Hollywood to find the best people for his spectaculars. So when I got the call, I wasn't all that anxious to come in for the interview from Laguna, where I was living then. I thought, "Well, he's seeing everyone and now it's my turn." Meeting him in his office at Paramount, I found that he had an extensive knowledge of my entire career—that's how thorough he was. When the interview lasted four hours, I knew I was in."

"I loved DeMille and he loved me. We only made Union Pacific together, but we did lots of radio. We got along great."

"There was an immediate rapport between us, and our relationship was more than director and star; there was a great friendship, and a great mutual respect. I loved the old buzzard. You either hated him or you loved him, there was no half-way measure at all. He liked me because I never "yessed" him, and contrary to popular opinion, DeMille hated yes-men. There were a lot of people around him who were yes-men because he was such a powerful producer-director, but they wouldn't last. He'd always say, "I don't want 50 little DeMilles running around—it's bad enough to have one!""

"The thing nobody ever tells you about marriage is that sometimes it makes you lonelier than being alone ever could."

"I’ve also seen both sexes mistreat their servants, servants’ children, and scream abuses at poor people in the markets. In Pakistan, abuse is not as openly discussed as it is in the West. Abuse seems to be more acceptable as long as one maintains a luxury lifestyle."

"I understand why some women choose to wear burqas as a protective cover to keep the men from staring,” said Ritchie, speaking of her experience of Pakistan. “It’s important to note that both women and men stare, but men are more obvious. In Islam, men are taught to lower their gaze in front of a woman, but that does not happen often."

"Whatever and whoever Ms. Ritchie,..., however many ‘privileges’ she enjoys, is a separate matter. Without any reference to the individuals she has pointed fingers at, because there is no way of knowing if those accusations are genuine- her claims of the harassment suffered by women in general at the hands of men in general, are distressingly true, and when there is even a grain of truth in a matter, it warrants attention. And what Ms. Richie has said contains more than just a grain."

"Those people with a sense of humor get by more comfortably than those who don’t."

"Every morning I pick up my newspaper, get the obituary section, see if I'm listed, and if not, I have my breakfast."

"It’s funny, it’s amazing how many people go see a movie and have not seen anything about it. People like you and I go to the movies and we’re worried that we’ve seen every scene through all the commercials, and yet half the audience, a lot of people make their decision what movie to see while they’re standing in line. So, I really don’t know. Audiences are getting very specific and segmented, but to me, the dream is still the movie that’s for everyone and it’s harder to reach everyone nowadays."

"I’m bored if I’m not trying to be funny, I always try to keep a sense of humor, at least with the cast. I want to bring out their creativity and humor and let them know that the set is a place where they’re not being judged. If everyone’s having a good time, then they’re probably feeling looser and more creative."

"I thought I could put my creativity to use in a good way and give the neighborhoods a voice and maybe change my own situation while doing it."

"I started to write a screenplay on people’s stories and what they were going through."

"We probably had a one percent chance at succeeding because most people who attempt to do this fail, but if you’re not afraid to fail let’s go for it."

"It's a test mentally, physically and spiritually at times. You must try to stay in the process of creating, which will always have obstacles."

"In movies you kind of work out your issues, but then you realize, those kind of traumatic issues stay with you forever so somehow they kind of keep reoccurring, no matter how hard I try to get them out of my head they sort of stay there."

"I never really got nightmares from movies. I was much more terrified by my own family and real life, you know?"

"People say, “Monster movies—they’re all fantasy.” Well, fantasy isn’t fantasy—it’s reality if it connects to you. It’s like a dream. You have a nightmare, and it’s got all this crazy imagery, but it’s real. You wake up in a cold sweat, freaking out. That’s completely real. So I always found that those people trying to categorize normal versus abnormal or light versus dark, yada yada, are all missing the point."

"It’s good as an artist to always remember to see things in a new, weird way. It’s like weird, twisted poetry, the way kids perceive things. And quite beautiful sometimes. They kind of blow your mind and ground you at the same time"

"There’s something beautiful about the stop-motion process, being able to touch the puppets. That’s such a personal feeling, even the medium itself, seeing the characters on the set with the lighting and everything. It’s like actually bringing something to life. It’s not the same feeling you get with a computer, where you can do amazing things, but there’s something about moving something and then seeing it come to life that connects you to the beginning of movies. That’s just a feeling; you can’t even really describe it."

"Thinking of Edward Scissorhands, a nostalgic wave washes over me."

"I can't think of a production designer working today who if offered the chance to design a horrible, rundown carnival/circus with all of the tents and wagons and all of the grotesquery, wouldn't leap at the opportunity because it's so much fun at an aesthetic level."

"I look for beauty and a pleasing aesthetic within the most mundane, most banal and try to find beauty. As horrible as those places are, you still get it and think it’s sort of cool. The goal is to experience it cinematically and in person and bathe in it."

"I do rough drawings. And then I work with concept artists who see my rough drawings and say “oh this is what you want!” And they generate, just gorgeous concept art, and then when people sign off on it, we really love everything, then you get a blueprint. You take the blueprint and go “oh I see.” And so the set decorator, costume designer, everyone gets it, and without slavishly copying it, although concept art and stills from our show usually match up, that’s fun. It’s all about control."

"Good ideas can go bad because they’re made for the wrong reasons. The mission isn’t the right mission. Even though all the players may be noble players, the mission itself is fundamentally flawed."

"As an artist, as much as some say they don’t care what the audience thinks, I think that’s bullshit. The bottom line as artists, we want people to respond to our work, we want to move people emotionally. That’s the whole purpose in life!"

"There’s something about our nature that feels a connection to some otherworldly connection in our lives."

"When you’re making a film, you come up with so much material and so much of that material ends up going unused. So, I think transmedia gives you a chance to use that extra material. You know, with Blair Witch we did a whole documentary using at least 50% of unused footage from the first movie. So as a filmmaker, it’s a great opportunity to dive into your story more and gives you a chance to explore any unused ideas. You know, it opens things up and keeps things fresh. Especially because when you write a film, shoot a film, and edit a film, you’re stuck in that world and narrative for so long and I think transmedia gives you a great opportunity to step outside of that for a moment and work on something else without abandoning the project entirely."

"I scare easily! I think that’s part of the reason I can make horror movies, I can relate to just being scared."

"Filmmaking is hard work, and there are plenty of times when you're just exhausted, and you haven't slept in a while, and you're just watching, and you're looking at something, and you're thinking, "Man, this is not going to work, this is going to be the stupidest thing.""

"In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon makes two moves with respect to civil society. First, he locates its genuine manifestation in Europe—the motherland. Then, with respect to the colony, he locates it only in the zone of the settler. This second move is vital for our understanding of black positionality in America and for understanding the, at best, limitations of radical social movements in America. For if we are to follow Fanon’s analysis and the gestures toward this understanding in some of the work of imprisoned intellectuals, then we have to come to grips with the fact that, for black people, civil society itself—rather than its abuses or shortcomings—is a state of emergency."

"Whiteness, then—and, by extension, civil society cannot be solely “represented” as some monumentalized coherence of phallic signifiers but must first be understood as a social formation of contemporaries who do not magnetize bullets. This is the essence of their construction through an asignifying absence; their signifying presence is manifested by the fact that they are, if only by default, deputized against those who do magnetize bullets. In short, white people are not simply “protected” by the police. They are—in their very corporeality—the police."

"The black subject reveals the inability of social movements grounded in Gramscian discourse to think of white supremacy (rather than capitalism) as the base and thereby calls into question their claim to elaborate a comprehensive and decisive antagonism. Stated another way, Gramscian discourse and coalition politics are indeed able to imagine the subject that transforms itself into a mass of antagonistic identity formations—formations that can precipitate a crisis in wage slavery, exploitation, and hegemony—but they are asleep at the wheel when asked to provide enabling antagonisms toward unwaged slavery, despotism, and terror."

"We begin to see how Marxism suffers from a kind of conceptual anxiety. There is a desire for socialism on the other side of crisis, a society that does away not with the category of worker but with the imposition that workers suffer under the approach of variable capital. In other words, the mark of its conceptual anxiety is in its desire to democratize work and thus help to keep in place and ensure the coherence of Reformation and Enlightenment foundational values of productivity and progress. This scenario crowds out other postrevolutionary possibilities—that is, idleness."

"Capital was kick-started by the rape of the African continent, a phenomenon that is central to neither Gramsci nor Marx. ... Capital was kick-started by approaching a particular body (a black body) with direct relations of force, not by approaching a white body with variable capital. Thus, one could say that slavery is closer to capital’s primal desire than is exploitation. It is a relation of terror as opposed to a relation of hegemony. Second, today, late capital is imposing a renaissance of this original desire, the direct relation of force, the despotism of the unwaged relation. This renaissance of slavery—that is, the reconfiguration of the prison-industrial complex—has once again as its structuring metaphor and primary target the black body."

"The worker calls into question the legitimacy of productive practices, while the slave calls into question the legitimacy of productivity itself."

"I don’t have a job - I have a career. This may sound like semantics, (maybe it is) but to me a job is something you depend on from an employer. It’s theirs to give and theirs to take away... A career is something i have to be responsible for based on my reputation, my ability, and my preferences."

"When business executives are making the artistic decisions and don't understand animation, things can go awry. Now they call in all of the authority figures they can find and hire them – the cost has gone up. The picture may or may not get better, but definitely, it gets more cumbersome. It's like trying to turn around an army of tanks, instead of being able to move lightly on your feet or being able to listen to what's going on inside of you – because that's what's telling you what to do. It gets bogged down."

"I think the destiny of all men is to be kings, the destiny of all women is to be queens. In some fashion or another, that's the destiny that we call it family but it's supposed to be that."

"My whole goal, besides trying to get more production value back into animation, was really to provide an environment like there was at Disney at one time, where you felt secure as an artist, filmmaker, contributor, animator. You could plan your life, have a place to raise your family, have a home and not worry about living like a gypsy. Personally, I can say I've been in the business for 28 years and have never been unemployed...though sometimes not paid. We've done our best to try to take care of our people. We've done our best to try to make good stories. How many people have gone out and hired sometimes over 500 people and come up with over $450,000 a week in salaries and still tried to create a quality product? It's not an easy thing to do...but it gives a great feeling of accomplishment."

"I’m surprised by the success of anything I do, but it’s gratifying when the public approves."

"I actually go, 'Wow! How lucky can a girl get?"

"The creatures were fun. They gave me a little problem at the beginning when we started to train them! But we finally got to be friends"

"From the time I was a very young kid I didn’t want to do anything but make movies the rest of my life."

"I like some of the sci fi and horror films made today but too many of them rely on digital effects, even when they’re not really called for."

"I'm an actor, not a politician. I don't represent a race. I don't represent any group. I just represent the character I'm playing at the time."

"If you don’t love your fellow man, women, person, then you don’t have anything."

"But I do see you today. And I’m encouraged by what I see. I’m strengthened by what I see. I love what I see."

"I actually kissed a man in the film, but they took it out, they cut it. I think they got chicken."

"I wasn't put on this earth to act. I was put on this earth to share and to be an example of the power and wisdom and grace and mercy of God in my life."

"[Question from the audience]: "If you could pick only one thing, what is the most important thing when it comes to creating and running your own series?"Craig McCracken: Characters. Great, likable characters that resonate with audiences. That's the most important thing. Concepts will get you to try out a show, to tune in to a show maybe, but concepts don't keep you watching over and over again. If you're not engaged with the characters and the personalities of the characters, you're not going to continue to watch that show."

"A lot of people come up with these really elaborate concepts, and they get into the weeds of the concepts and how the story's gonna be. That's not what executives wanna see. They wanna see characters that they can engage with, and, also it sounds a little cliche, but the so-called "elevator pitch" or seven words, "try to describe your show in seven words", is a really good exercise. I found it just... work through, y'know, what your idea is about. That elevator pitch is basically "I've got a few seconds to tell somebody my idea, how would I say it?""

"The main inspirations for Powerpuff for me were the '66 Adam West Batman show, and Underdog."

"When I first did my first short for Powerpuff Girls, and we focus-tested it, I'm sure people have heard this story, we showed it to a group of 11-year-old boys, and they said "this is the worst cartoon that has been ever made and whoever made it should be fired." I'm sitting in the room with all the executives watching these 11-year-old boys destroy the show, and... I was like, I went back to the studio and I started redesigning the characters and I gave 'em fingers and I made them more accessible, and I was like "they didn't get it, they didn't get it..." [...] I took that criticism and went, "what did I do wrong? What wasn't I communicating? How I was I not telling this idea clearly?" And what I realized I was doing, is I had been making it in my head for so long, I made an episode that was like a third season, middle-of-the-season episode. And I'm like, "No, you gotta go back to the very beginning of the idea" [...] and just kind of step the audience through the idea and introduce them. Even though it seems like old hat to you, and you're like "well that's boring", but that's what the audience wants. Tell them a story. Who are they, these characters? Why should I like them? Don't be so ironic or high-concept-y."

"When I was a kid I spent a lot of time playing with the artisticly rooted pieces of junk that George was selling me. My wife Lauren did the same the only difference was her junk was pink and had combable hair. Either way these toys were far from junk, in fact they were our lives. Everyday we would make up characters, worlds, and adventures for them. Lauren's My Little Pony world was no less valid than My Little Star Wars world.So imagine little Lauren's surprise when she heard there was going to be a cartoon of her favorite toy! Imagine her dissapointment when the cartoon didn't live up to the world she had created in her head. Maybe she wouldn't have been so upset if she realized that cartoon was only bad because it was produced by a bunch of dudes who couldn't believe they were working on My Little Pony, uggggh. Imagine if they let HER make it, she knows why girls like Pony, she knows what will make it fun and cool.Now imagine 30 years later in some crazy cosmic coincidence she actually does get a get a chance to finally bring that world she's had in her head since she was a little kid to life! Maybe just maybe if she can traverse the waters of notes, schedules, and executives she can finally inject a little a artistic integrity and creative vision into it and make a MLP that girls will actually really like.Heck I even like it now and I hated that lame Pony junk, it wasn't cool like my Star Wars junk."

"When [Powerpuff Girls] was tested, everyone hated it. There were 11-year-old boys telling me I should be fired and it was the worst cartoon they've ever seen in their life."

"What a lot of people have found out about Powerpuff Girls is initially they just think it's this little girl thing that's lame like My Little Pony or whatever. Then they watch it and they’re like "Wait a minute, this is really funny, and this is really good, and it's actually, you know, entertaining.""

"Right now, there are more people on Facebook than there were on the planet 200 years ago. Humanity’s greatest desire is to belong and connect, and now, we see each other. We hear each other. We share what we love. And this connection is changing the way the world works."

"After a treacherous journey we finally arrived in Sudan, on top of the Nuba Mountains, and with it came a shocking 130° degree [fahrenheit, 54° celsius] heat — and right from the start, we could tell, this was not the adventure we had expected. There wasn't much to do."

"This is not cinema harnessing life; this is life harnessing cinema. Not a film. An attempt at a film. The imperfect effort is ever present, mischievously decorating every frame. Reminding us: one never actually makes a film—one merely attempts to make a film. Reminding us: one never actually lives—one attempts to live."

"All lovers are runaways, are fugitives. Inheriting the entire world on that journey. Escaping to one another."

"Nostalgia is an illness. A symptom of the dying, of those who have more life behind them than before them."

"Media technology will place a barrier before us. The barrier of a mirror. It is too loyal to history and the history it preserves will become constantly present. No longer a cultural past merely documented, but a past alive. Eternal. So that it is no longer past, but a continuous present that cycles and repeats endlessly, disallowing the possibility of a future. Static memory. Memory uninterrupted by the present."

"Collective subversion is conformity. The only true revolution is the singular one."

"There is no artistic worth in compromise, in a pair, in collaboration, in obedient unity. These are all impossible terms. Action must come from the individual. The group (even if just a population of two) is only capable of reaction."

"(Lydia) Lunch and a lot of the no wave musicians were imbued with the wisdom—and neuroses—of genuine trauma. There's the divine madness in them. When Suicide's Alan Vega sneered, you might have actually found yourself bloodied shortly thereafter. You sure as hell wouldn't reach for your iPhone to Instagram and tag his #antics. You'd feel a little intruded upon, which is precisely how all the best art should make you feel."

"Love is at essence ritual of tandem fate, of harmonized experience. It’s a holy thing, that merging of consciousness. Our minds become authored by so many of the same events, colored by so much mutual memory."

"Love is never more than a faith, and that’s why it’s so exciting."

"Patience is the only honest muse. In writing, in painting, and especially in photography."

"Don’t hunt for what to photograph. Let images find you. You wander your desert until worthy mirage appears. Wait until that worthy shot comes. And then try to capture it."

"Photography is a hunt. But one that ends in the immortality of the prey, rather than the prey’s death."

"Film photography just makes such an ally of chance, and chance is essential to any valid art, to the poetic…to life, to the spiritual."

"Any art should be advertising for one's soul."

"Our story is not really ours until we tell it, until it belongs to others too."

"Making a documentary is like having a dream. You can’t really anticipate what it will be. You have to constantly yield to whatever is manifested before you, to have the courage for whatever is revealed to you. Whatever truth confesses itself, even if it’s not what you anticipated. To just be a mirror. To invite in whatever arrives. To reflect it as loyally."

"(William) Burroughs was all about the future. Was all about liberation through the dismantling of presiding orders. He was a big influence on punk culture and punk music (and me) for that reason."

"Never rub another man's rhubarb."

"If men are honest, everything they do and everywhere they go is for a chance to see women."

"I’m definitely still wild at heart. But I’ve struck bio-gravity."

"We try to give a voice to not just the writers or our directors, but even the story artists. We make it in a way that they also get to be participants in the writing and in the brainstorming so that they can put their contributions in. It becomes this amazing hive mind of, how can we make this as authentic of a feeling and experience as possible? I do think a lot of that is just getting the right team that gets along and just cares enough about the show or the movie. That even extends to the art team and the production. It really makes a difference when they care about what’s being said and what the message is."

"If you’re a parent, you want to teach your kids to be kind, you want to teach them to care about other people and you want to teach them not to discriminate for no reason."

"I think everyone will tell you that we live in a time that technology has given everyone the ability to make their own things and create exposure through the internet and social media. Those things weren’t available when I was starting out. So, without question, you should take advantage of those things. What everyone neglects to mention is the importance of personal growth and development. So much of what you create is shaped by your background and the things that shaped you. The better you understand your background, the sharper your voice will become."

"I try not to wink at the audience too much or laugh at my own satire. Good B-movie camp has to be played deadly serious. Let the audience do the chuckling."

"My biggest influence was my father, Rolf Forsberg, who was a successful independent filmmaker in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, doing mostly shorts, religious films, and eco-green-movies before they were cool. My friends and I would watch his films over and over again when they slept at my house. I got my first super 8mm camera when I was nine and I’ve been making movies ever since."

"When you look at three hundred people, you’ll find some that just fit. It’s like a bell rings, “They’re perfect. That’s them!” Then once that happens, eighty-percent of communicating the world to them is achieved. They are now communicating that world to me. We’re now creating it together. I’m a very collaborative director. I bring them into the world by being excited. I try to give that to them and give them a tremendous amount of leeway to let them build up their characters."

"Movies are going to go away eventually. I just want to make sure that, when they do, they turn into something better."

"The higher-ups that I’m negotiating with are always men, I think if you asked any of them, they’re really liberal guys and they’d be like, ‘We wish there were more female directors.’ But whenever they have this large amount of money and they are about to invest it in something and they need to pick somebody to be at the helm for it and represent them, they look for somebody that’s the most like them. Unconsciously! They’re like, ‘I wish there were more female directors, but for this movie [made with] my money, I’m going to pick the guy that’s like me.’"

"It is very difficult to edit something that I direct. It’s having to remake decisions that I’ve already made on set and now have to undo or reimagine. I always warn Directors sitting down with me to edit not to watch the film and footage too much. The ability to have fresh eyes and be able to watch the movie as a viewer is the most valuable tool a director has."

"The creative community has a lot more ideas than the executive community feels comfortable with."

"We’ve been doing this for awhile, when you’ve been doing this a long time, you cross your fingers and hope for the best, but you never know. To find an audience that’s passionate, that’s as good as it gets."

"I suppose it's no surprise that we feel the need to dehumanize the people we hurt—before, during, or after the hurting occurs. But it always comes as a surprise. In psychology it's known as cognitive dissonance. It's the idea that it feels stressful and painful for us to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time (like the idea that we're kind people and the idea that we've just destroyed someone). And so to ease the pain we create illusory ways to justify our contradictory behavior."

"Maybe there are two types of people in the world: those who favor humans over ideology, and those who favor ideology over humans. I prefer humans to ideology, but right now the ideologues are winning, and they're creating a stage for artificial high dramas, where everyone is either a magnificent hero or a sickening villain."

"I don't believe you could be narrow culturally or intellectually when you're creating cartoons. If you look at the old classics from the '40s, from anybody, it's loaded with culture, and references to things that people have experienced, to music and sound effects to even writing gags, social commentary, parody. Those were people that are very, very aware. They didn't put out gags superficially."

"The job of a director on the set to a large degree is to keep everybody’s moral up, he’s one of the very few people on the set who doesn’t have anything to do, because he’s overseeing it. He’s not shooting it, he’s not editing it, so a director needs to make sure that the cast and crew can do the best possible job. Sometimes I see films where the actors walk through it almost mechanically, and then there are other movies where every actor, top to bottom, seems to be doing a really great job. Then you know that there’s a chemistry on the set created by the director, an environment that helps them to do their work."

"Any screenwriter will tell you that as satisfying and wonderful a career as that is, outside of the people you work with, nobody actually reads what you write. Your writing goes through a process, touched by multiple dozens of people, until it becomes a finished piece of film. As an example on a very simple level, you may write a line of dialog that you absolutely love, but an actor had to speak that line, and music might be there to underscore the line, and the line might be read in a situation where a dozen other things are happening simultaneously. It's all good and the way it is supposed to work, but the overall experience becomes about so much more than the line itself. Writing a book is much more pure than that, and I wanted to experience it."

"The thing is, kids love scary stories. They love dramatic stories. They love that kind of stuff. It’s one of the reasons why I write books now. I’m able to write the kind of stuff I like, whereas in TV I can’t do that anymore."

"I rarely take the characteristics of someone I know and make them a complete fictional character, except maybe with truly minor characters who only play a small role. All of my characters are more like the Frankenstein monster, having been stitched together using multiple real people. The classic advice to any writer is "write what you know". So in order to create believable characters, you have to write about people you know."

"There was no interference, nothing on a creative level, you have the idea, you go for it. And that's what it was like with all the shows made back then, it was that attitude that really created Nickelodeon and made the show as good as it was."

"A script is only the beginning of the process. But with books, what you write is exactly what people read. So as a writer, that's very satisfying."

"I just happen to be someone who happens to like the fear to be created in my mind. That’s why I like the more minimalistic approach. It’s just a taste thing. I’m not as into the blood and guts."

"I think the key to a great romcom is to not fight against the genre,” she explains. “The trend more recently has been to apologise, or be snarky, so it’s an anti-romcom.” Out comes that wide smile. “Just lean in and embrace the fact it’s a love story and it’s funny and it’s light. It can still be uber-smart and deal with zeitgeist issues."

"The studios really don’t care very much about the individual artists – they just want to get the shots for the right price. I don’t think that’s an artform that’s based on artistry or passion or vision, or anything, it’s just a commodity, a production line."

"My dream participation would be to make as much money as humanly possible for doing nothing whatsoever."

"CGI is a wonderful tool but I believe it’s mostly mis-used. Or maybe more to the point: OVER-used. I truly believe we have a little chip in our head that subconsciously tells us when something we’re seeing isn’t real… and therein lies the danger of CGI."

"The thing that I learned from Night of the Creeps that went going into Monster Squad and anything else that I had done since then is to have a stopwatch and make sure that however long it takes to play the scene or the take, that we do a couple at different speeds and presumably faster. If you look at the Preston Sturges comedies of the forties or some of the great comic directors of those days or even Howard Hawks, where he had everybody talking over each other very quickly. I think that's a great litmus test because people will almost never blame you if your movie goes too quickly, but they will get their noses out of joint if it's too slow. So the lesson I learned on Creeps was pace. But there's times when it takes its time and that really, really works for it. Making movies is trying to catch lightning in a bottle and it's very, very tricky to do."

"I wrote Novitiate because I saw in a nun’s world a unique and profound way to explore the subject of the way women love. That is what remains at the heart of the story for me. … When I finished this movie, I had a new understanding of religion. I have now a deep sense of admiration and enduring empathy for nuns. Not to mention all the extraordinary sacrifices these women were willing to make, in the name of their love and faith."

"I was told they'd hired somebody for Leonardo and then they fired him. And then they hired another guy and then they fired him, too. So they said, "We're still looking for this guy to do the turtle." I thought, "What the hell does a turtle sound like?""

"We need to change environmental policy. We need to have scientists who are working on massive data and research projects. All of those need to happen in parallel with your everyday citizen doing their part. That’s what I mean, is that for those people who find it overwhelming to look at environmental issues on a global scale, we need to scale it down and make it tangible. There needs to continue to be these other processes happening; people working on climate change, people working on environmental law, people working on ecosystem protection, the creation of marine parks. Whatever it is that has a greater impact. For the everyday person, just start, please. Start something."

"I can understand that people get overwhelmed very quickly when you start to talk about an enormous issue like climate change. But I suggest they just choose one change and implement that in their lives, such as deciding not to eat bluefin tuna or shrimp anymore because it’s unsustainable. Then when that becomes simply part of your life, chose something else to implement. Make informed choices and make them part of your everyday life and don’t assume others are doing it for you."

"Whenever I look at any environmental story, whether it’s oceans, jungles, Antarctica, or the Amazon, I look at the human side to translate it in a relevant way for human beings. It makes it more relevant and compelling to people who are watching, listening, reading."

"“I don't suffer the same things that they do, but I stand with them to defend and protect [their lives and homeland]"

"In Hollywood they throw money at problems – on independent films you’ve got to use your brain in pre-production. The big mistake kids make is they fight to get the money to make a movie and they don’t prepare it properly. All the films except Death Curse and Stanley, I always took six to eight weeks prep. Where I knew everything and I had blocked the shots on paper. Kids just start right in and can’t figure out why they’re over budget or schedule. You’ll never hear this from anybody else – I’ve made way over 15 films, I’ve never been one day over schedule or one dollar over budget. I don’t think there’s a filmmaker in the world that can make that statement!"

"My favorite scene is the one I’m shooting at the moment. When people ask me which of my movies is my favorite, I always say, “the next one”. Perhaps the same is true of every scene. The next one is perfect. It is finished in my mind without a flaw. Untainted by the reality of time running out, actors forgetting their lines, light dropping fast, wagon stuck in the mud or mismatched piece of clothing that must be found and brought to set."

"I'm gay in my art and straight in my life."

"One thing that I was aware of was that, whatever I do as an Asian American actor, I should try my best to bring something positive to the image of an Asian American."

"Of course, it’s very nice. Because I’ve done this for a long time and just in life, I’ve learned to live with very little expectation. Then, you’re not let down. The more you expect, the more you’re going to be let down and disappointed. When everything comes together, it’s just a nice bonus. A lot of it has to do with trust because of who these people are. There’s an integrity behind it that I feel is genuine. I trust my own instincts. I saw the passion and the commitment they put into making sure that show is as good as it could be, in a respectful way, to Bruce Lee and the legacy that he left behind."

"I never set out to be an actor. I always knew that I wanted to direct and produce movies. I’m well aware that I was very lucky. My career started out with a bang and I’ve had incredible opportunities to do very good projects and work with wonderful people. I would be lying to say that I wasn’t aware of the success and the fame that it brought me and the cast members of 21 Jump Street. At the height of the show, we literally couldn’t go anywhere. We all enjoyed that, but I had enough sense to know that all of that would be gone, at some point. Nothing lasts forever. So, I continued to keep working in any way that I could, but I never really thought of the trajectory of what kind of career I was going to have, and certainly not where I ended up today."

"So whatever decision you make, you're going to be able to find stories or signs to say 'I did the right thing,' because we have to believe we did the right thing in order to survive."

"I think people have this romanticism of the homeland, and that’s just not the reality for me. Every time I go back to China, I feel more American than ever, so it’s this question of, ‘Well, where is home?’ We’re always searching for it and never fully fitting in."

"It’s so much easier to tell a fish-out-of-water story when the person is blond and blue-eyed going to an Asian country, for example. But what is it like when you look the same as those people, and you’re expected to fit in? How do you put that interiority on screen?"

"People are always asking me about the importance of representation and identity in relation to making The Farewell and of course those things are really important to me – thinking about my identity and exploring my identity in the west. But I would love it if men – white men – were also asked the same questions as me. They should be asked these questions so they can be more conscientious about how they’re representing people, how they’re not representing people, and aware of their own blind spots."

"In my family, and especially when I go back to China, it's always like, prepare your stomach, because it's the way that they express love."

"Sometimes America is so great because it brings all of us together, but sometimes it can be so limiting because it puts labels on things."

"Americans always talk about family love being unconditional, and I realized that I didn't feel that way."

"We all have different aspects of ourselves, and who we are to different people in our lives, at different stages of our lives."

"There have been moments where I laughed at my own family's culture, though it's hard to separate out whether something funny is cultural, or just my grandma specifically."

"There's so little representation of people who look like me behind the camera that it makes you want to say yes to any opportunity out of desperation. It puts you in a situation where you can't make your best work. Diversity for cheap."

"I can't speak for everybody, and I don't want to say it for an entire culture, but for me, coming from an immigrant family, it's very difficult to go find your voice, which requires a lot of failure."

"The questions I want to ask will revolve around humans, connection, relationships, family, and stories - what are the stories we tell ourselves and each other?"

"Good drama (and comedy) often comes from the simple act of placing characters in a situation that is not usual nor comfortable for them."

"My fascination is with relationships at their most microcosmic. The more epic, the more uninteresting the film-making becomes. It becomes about getting the perfect crane shot."

"I want my movies to feel like you’re paratrooping into somebody’s life."

"The genesis of the vast majority of my films is an actor as a muse that I want to work with. Humpday was Mark Duplass, Outside In was his brother, Jay Duplass, this movie was Marc Maron, who I’ve been really wanting to make a movie with for three and a half years. Then there’s other things, like a territory I want to explore or an element I want to return to, like improvisation, which I haven’t done since Your Sister’s Sister."

"As a filmmaker, I really am most interested in humans and their deep desire to connect to each other. How do they get through their own lives? Where have I come and where am I now? And where do I want to go from here? It’s all of those humanistic questions."

"There seems to be a prejudice against television directors. Now there are a lot of bad television directors. If you do the same sort of television for a long enough time, something happens to your imagination. That's why I won't even consider certain television shows anymore. The people I like to work with are the ones who have some sort of vision about what they're doing."

"He’s a person, which is the whole point of this movie. He’s not just some like floating demon slayer, and it’s a really tricky balance…He’s someone who clearly has a lot of pain, and that’s something I find really interesting about him as a character."

"I love horror and I felt like I had a really good idea about how to make something scary, but also I’m very measured, especially with a story like this, about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate."

"I would have hated getting the question, ‘Isn’t it so timely right now, with all these deaths going on?’ That’s not why we made it. But I think it will happen again – a summer like last summer. I think that the story we’re telling was about that: the fact that it’s cyclical. It could come out next year, it could come out any time and still be relevant."

"It’s not necessarily overtly racist, but it is shocking the way people have talked to me in my position as a director. People who work for me. Especially on a movie like this, where Jordan was the only other person of colour at the level of decision-making on the movie. And that’s unacceptable, frankly."

"I think I’m somewhat defined by my race for sure, and I’m good with that and I actually want that to be a part. I think that should be fodder for our work — we should use all aspects of ourselves. I’m always trying to find a place where that’s actually an impact on what I’m doing as opposed to going, “Well, we’re all just people and we’re the same.”"

"People treat actors and people in the public eye differently from how they’d treat anybody else in their lives. You would never come up to a stranger, throw your arm around them and say, ‘Hey, buddy, lemme get this picture.’ You think it’s OK to do that?"

"This [Racism] is a systemic, institutionalized problem that we are all fully aware of."

"I hope to use my ‘celebrity’ to motivate people and contribute to moving our global society back from the brink. I am surprised environment is not at the top of the agenda. What is more important than food and clean air? We need a big push."

"I came of age for film, at a time when the sexism was pretty strong. And although I could get work as a Writer, I couldn’t get work as a Director at all. And I had the experience of watching young men who had made shorts as I had, prize winning shorts, as I had, moving on to directing films and I couldn’t do it. And, and my husband, Ray [Ray Silver], was… became angry, and he said, “You know, maybe you can do it, maybe you can’t, but everybody should have a chance to try for the brass ring.”"

"My own experience with my films has been that the more I’m left alone, the better I do. It isn’t that I think I’m smarter than anyone, or anything like that. It’s just that whatever my instincts are, it’s better for me to be able to put those into play in my own work."

"I don’t think too many people had what I had, a husband who believed in me and who wanted to help me. (discussing the support and encouragement she received at the start of her film career)"

"So many directors that I admire do things in two takes, like Lumet, and then there are directors like Arthur Penn, who did 40 takes. Whatever works for you, but I like to get it, and once I’ve got it move on. I don’t keep doing it to see if anything else will come. I haven’t ever had where I’ve had so much time or money where I would have had the time to do 40 takes. (as an answer to if she has a preferance to do a minimum number of takes)"

"I really love being the person who in the end gets to make the decisions and have it become the way you want it to be and that urge is an overpowering urge that I have that makes me want to make films."

"It's a human truth that romantic fantasies are very hard to let go of and while it would be very nice to say Izzy, observing the difference between the two men realize that immediately that Sam was the better choice. I mean maybe you know maybe you work more rationally than than Izzy I don't know. But I mean the thing is that that you don't always do what's good for you, you know you don't always do what's right for you and sometimes you have to grow past it or go through something in order to reject it. (discussing the lead character's decision making in the film Crossing Delancey)"

"Abstract notions of feminism never interested Joan; specific women and their stories did. Yet without setting out to do so, Joan Silver influenced generations of women to come. She was a trail-blazer, a risk-taker, a champion of other women directors. And always as quietly confident as she was the day I met her some fifty years ago."

"Joan Micklin Silver was one of the most courageous artists I ever knew. She knew she could prevail at a time when women were not being taken seriously as film directors. We have all been deprived of seeing so many many other great movies that Joan was ready and prepared to give us."

"The pathbreaking movie director Joan Micklin Silver got to have a career that almost no woman was allowed to have, and did not get to have the career that she deserved. Such is the paradox of the pioneer: You get to go where very few have gone before, but when you get there, there’s nobody to pull you up or push you ahead. You make your own way, and withstand the indifference, the hostility, the condescension, and the people who treat you as a curiosity or a slightly troubling anomaly."

"Hollywood, of course, expected women to be collaborative, but had no intention of rewarding them for it. So she stayed independent. (Hollywood's ignorance of Joan Micklin Silver's talents and ambition)"

"We were so young and had never produced anything, and Joan was infinitely patient and remarkably assured on the set. We learned so much about movies from her. And she really knew how to talk to actors. John [Heard] could be tricky — he was moody and had a tough reputation. But he never gave her a moment of trouble. (memories of the production of Chilly Scenes of Winter)"

"Great American filmmaker not nearly revered enough, I think she should be talked about alongside John Cassavetes as people who really moved the needle for American Indie Cinema, like after World War II and before Sundance."

"You don’t survive as a screenwriter-for-hire if you’re not willing to incorporate other people’s ideas or at least be willing to consider them. What I’ve found is that other people have really good ideas, which make you look better. It’s part of the process. At all stages of production, including pre- and post-, your film is going to change because it’s being shaped by all these people and ideas."

"I keep up on the news, and there's all this noise out there, with all of the media and people on their phones all the time. I think we've become a schizophrenic culture primarily as a result of the genie getting out of the bottle with all this media stuff."

"The people who say such things are crazy. I am a Northerner, I hate segregation, and I gave jobs to hundreds of Negroes at the same salary the whites were paid. I had production companies hire poverty-stricken Indians and pay them the highest Hollywood salaries for extras. Me, a racist? My best friends are black: , and a caretaker who has worked for me for thirty years. I even made ', about a character who was not just a nice black guy but someone nobler than anybody else in the picture. They wouldn't let me make that picture because they said that a movie about a 'nigger' wouldn't make any money and couldn't be exhibited in the South. I got angry and told them they could at least have the decency to say 'Negro' or 'colored man,' because most of those 'niggers' were worth better than they. When I landed at there were scores of black bodies lying in the sand. Then I realized that it was impossible not to consider them full-fledged American citizens."

"What? [...] I understood the question but what does it mean? [...] I don't have a method. I tell them what to do. They do it. If I'm not satisfied, I correct their errors, I tell them to raise their voice, or to emphasize such-and-such sentence, and they do it again; that's all. Anyway, most of the time the actors are very good friends of mine and I know their personality and their range. There's no method involved there.""

"Maureen O'Hara is one of the actresses I most dislike. Everybody thought I was her lover. Actually, I hated her and she hated me, but she was right for the parts."

"Do you know that Eugene O'Neill loved ' [(1940), based on a cycle of O'Neill's one-act sea plays]? Every month he had a print screened for him. It's a little thing that made me very proud of this picture."

"Never. It's awful. When I am asked why I hardly ever move the camera, I answer that the actors are better paid than the stagehands and grips, so it's normal that they should work and move about a little more. You should never use technical gimmicks to create emotion."

"I think "laconic" is a good word for John Ford and for his technique of direction. No big deal about communication with John. Terse, pithy, to the point. Very Irish, a dark personality, a sensitivity which he did everything to conceal, but once he said to me while I was doing a scene with Ray Massey, "Make it scan, Mary." And I said to myself, "Aha! I know you now!"."

"Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath and the subsequent John Ford movie promulgated a populist mythology about depression-era migrants to California who were dubbed "Okies," no matter what southwestern or midwestern state they hailed from. But most Californians regarded Okies as dirty, shifty, lazy, violent, and ignorant."

"He was the first to dare use very lengthy long takes, going against Hollywood rules. He wouldn't cut to a closer shot. No one has been able to generate as much emotion as Ford does in long shots; watch The Grapes of Wrath and Young Mr. Lincoln."

"John Ford came in and I was very scared of him. A rough character. I heard he despised the English, so I invented an Irish grandfather and told tales to him that simply were not true. [...] I found Ford to be a very curmudgeonly taskmaster, but always very fair. He always knew what he wanted in a scene. He never overshot. God help you if you didn't deliver what he wanted. And he liked me well enough that I finally told him that my Irish grandfather was fictional. He roared over that one. We've been close friends ever since. He used me a lot over the next few decades."

"He didn't direct you. He never told you what to do. He would talk to you, mostly about something completely different, and you find yourself doing the right thing. It was really very spooky—what he did."

"A good picture, as we all know, starts with a story. The next thing is to tell that story pictorially. [...] Fast-moving, pictorial, not overloaded with dialogue. You could see that picture without dialogue and know what it was all about. That was the secret of John Ford's pictures. You could run any one of his pictures silent, and you'd still know what they were all about."

"This man directs less than any man in the business. As a matter of fact, he doesn't direct—he doesn't want any actor to give an impression of him playing the part. He wants the actor to create the part—that's why he hired him, because he saw him in this part."

"John Ford was the quintessential American director, an intuitive film maker with no intellectual pretensions who made movies as he wanted to make them, and in the end found them to be as popular with the buffs as with the general public. ... And the true test-of his genius is the fact, that, as cinema fashions have come and gone, his reputation has seldom faltered."

"Godard and [[Ingmar Bergman|[Ingmar] Bergman]] have always admired him, Mr Nixon says he loved him and those who have nothing but disrespect for the average commercial movie will seldom hear a word against John Ford. Yet at the same time he has also been accused of everything under the sun from being a political reactionary to a moral sentimentalist. There was no doubt that he could make awful movies that extolled the American way of life in the most simplistic way. There was no doubt also that the old values of rough frontiersman integrity suited him best..."

"I only met John Ford once. On the steps of MGM one evening. We were introduced by mutual friends. People spend a lot of time comparing my work to his. Most of that's bullshit. First of all, I don't like most of his later films. I love The Informer and Grapes of Wrath and—what was that other one?—Tobacco Road. His best Western is '. Fonda was sensational in that. I hated '. I loved the book but I thought the movie was shit. But I suppose he didn't like much of what I did, either. I think we're very different."

"As for the director, John Ford, from my first meeting with him to the day the picture was completed I knew I was in the hands of the consummate professional. I felt safe and secure with him. If I argued a line of dialogue with him or objected to a bit of business, I can now assure you it was more to assert my ego than it was to attack him. Almost entirely throughout the film, when we clashed, it turned out he was right and I was wrong. The main point to be made is that he would sit me down and show me where I was wrong. He is a totally remarkable director and one of the few deserving a place in the Pantheon. I'm told he's aging now, and cranky; well, I'm aging now, and cranky, but I bet if the right script came along (and were still around to write it), John Ford and I could knock the shit out of it."

"Very early, I was a film buff.... I learned from everything. You learn for just meeting John Ford."

"I never make visual references to Ford in my films, but I did remind my cameraman of Ford's very economical use of the close-up and careful handling of space. The first close-up of John Wayne in ' comes after 40 minutes! One of the top stars of the time! Still, he is incredibly powerful and present in the film. So I tried to do something similar here, partly in reaction to so many films shot today in the style of TV. I wanted to do an intimate story in wide shots, and it seemed appropriate, because the audacious use of space would emphasize the historical dimensions. That's also Ford, because my film is about values, and Ford's always are, too. Ford is one of the few classic American directors whose emphasis is on the collective rather than on the individual. I have read critics who believe he is reactionary, but they forget not only how nonjudgmental he is; he has a sense of the group's responsibility, of their mutual need. In ', John Wayne says, "This is work for a professional," but not in Yellow Ribbon, where they come and say, "How can we help?"."

"Sometimes Ford failed to grasp the meaning of a question that a European director, or American directors like Elia Kazan, Richard Brooks, , or would have had no trouble assimilating. For example: How do you direct your actors? Ford couldn't understand the rationale for such a question. It seemed truly odd to him. Not dumb--like the radio journalist who asked him about "Fantastic Ride" [La Chevauchee fantastique is the French release title of Stagecoach]--but odd, and he didn't know what to answer. Since he was physically rather intimidating, with his one eye that seemed to peer deep inside of you and his piratelike countenance, even the bold could easily get flustered."

"You won't like what I am going to say, because the people who I admire are the least-valued by cinema intellectuals; it seems like a tragic misunderstanding to me. My favorite filmmaker is De Sica: I know I'm upsetting you. And John Ford. But the Ford of twenty years ago, the De Sica of twelve years ago."

"I've only been influenced by somebody once: prior to making Citizen Kane, I saw Stagecoach forty times. I didn't need to learn from somebody who had something to say, but from somebody who would show me how to say what I had in mind; and John Ford is perfect for that."

"The only director who does not move either his camera or his actors very much, and in whom I believe, is John Ford. He succeeds in making me believe in his films even though there is little movement in them. But with the others I have the impression that they are desperately trying to make Art."

"Stanley Kubrick and are the only ones that appeal to me—except for the old masters. By which I mean John Ford, John Ford and John Ford.[...] With Ford at his best, you feel that the movie has lived and breathed in a real world."

"One thing I learned is that cinematography is not something you do by yourself. It’s a group [project]. You need to develop your own vision, but the key to a successful film is communication with your director and your team."

"Right now, I'm just really interested in finding fruitful collaborations. To me, it’s the collaborative effort between creative minds that elevates each other’s work."

"No. That was no good. That was no good at all."

"She had this amazing background that you just sort of instantly romanticize. She had this whole Ukrainian vibe that made her seem both super cool and serious about truth."

"The reason I created Jimmy in the first place was I’ve always been a huge fan of science and technology and space, but I was never smart enough to actually become an astronaut or become a scientist — my math skills aren’t strong enough."

"Halyna Hutchins was not just one of the most talented people I’ve worked with, but also a friend. I’m shocked and saddened by her death. It’s my hope that this tragedy prompts the industry to reevaluate its values and practices to ensure no one is harmed through the creative process again."

"This tragedy is overwhelming to all of us .. it's deeply saddening to my client. This idea my client grabbed the gun and handed it to Baldwin absolutely did not happen. The armorer brought the weapon in The armorer opens the firearm... [Halls] didn't load it."

"I want to start with the fact that in the affidavit it states that my client grabbed the gun off of a prop cart and handed it to Baldwin. That absolutely did not happen. That ABSOLUTELY did not happen. In addition to me presenting not only what Mister Halls has told me, we, our defense team, has interviewed witnesses and some of those witnesses that we've talked to, when we talked to them, they hadn't even been interviewed by the police yet. And those witnesses also confirm that they remember that the armer or the armer's assistant brought in the firearm, brought it onto the set. So this idea that my client grabbed the gun off of a prop cart and handed it Mister Baldwin absolutely did not happen. .. Okay, one of the problems that some of the witnesses have had is that, um... most of the crew knew each other, but not all of the crew knew the armers. So the armers were relatively new to this particular crew, and both of the armer and the assistant armer were women in their twenties. And so some of the witnesses are getting confused whether the armer came in or the assistant armer. But regardless whether it was the armer that brought the firearm on the set or the assistant armer that brought the firearms on set, my client did not bring the armer .. did not bring the firearm on set. He did not grab it from.. I have received information from crew members that the armer handed it directly to Baldwin, and then Baldwin put it inside where his, uh, holster would be, and then at some point he pulled the firearm out and he wanted to adjust, um, the holster, and then he hands the firearm to Mister Halls who immediately hands it right back after he's adjusted the holster. Other witnesses have said that, um, that the armer brought the firearm in, that they checked the firearm, that my client checked the firearm, there was another crew member who checked the firearm, and that she handed it to him like a pass-through, and that he then handed it immediately over to Baldwin because he was between the two. So I can't tell you verbatim what happened: these people are overwhelmed by the grief and the shock."

"When pressed further, the attorney said she has spoken to some crew members who remember Gutierrez-Reed handing the weapon to Baldwin while others recall seeing Halls pass it to the actor directly after being passed the weapon by Gutierrez-Reed himself."

"According to authorities in Santa Fe, four people handled the gun before the shooting: Baldwin, Halls, Gutierrez-Reed and prop master Sarah Zachry, according to Fox News."

"I want to live in a country where Colin Kaepernick is seen as a hero and Kyle Rittenhouse is seen as a terrorist."

"We will eradicate Donald J Trump and all those who enable him"

"Eradicate Chuck Kirk & his kind!"

"Eradicate the sick fuck now!"

"The Murder of Charlie Kirk is heartbreaking"

"From a cinema major’s perspective, philosophically, theoretically it’s easier for people to imprint on that character what they think they’re feeling. I don’t know why, but it seems easier for kids to identify with someone like Ferb, or Perry, when they say nothing."

"There was something wonderful about being able to look up and see what that physical representation was going to look like. It is one of the things that I miss, now that we’re in a much more digital age."

"PLAYBOY: Your salary is shooting up into the multimillions per movie–reportedly $ 4 million to $ 7 million. Do those numbers make you chuckle? CAGE: I don't chuckle. I have respect for the dollar. PLAYBOY: It's a lot of money. CAGE: There's one thing I have some difficulty with, and that's hanging on to money. I find ways of spending money that mystify everybody around me. They're amazed. They want to know how I do it."

"I’m not career-minded. My mantra has always been “work.” I never had a “career.” I only had “work.” That was a way of going through different movies. I find something in a movie that I think works. It’s like a rock album. Maybe not all of it works in the script, but there’s one or two songs, one or two scenes that work."

"The media sometimes talks about the Video-on-Demand work. The first thing I want to say about that is that, in my opinion, anyone that says “straight to video” in this age is a dinosaur. It’s past tense. Everything is streaming now. It’s one of the best ways to get your movie out there now and have it re-played. It’s been terrific for me."

"My interest has always been cinema or films, because that’s what I was most compelled by. I was most inspired by the movie actors that I grew up with. I only hesitate to say I would because my process now is that I need about two months for the libretto of the screenplay to sink into my instruments so that I can not have to think about dialogue. That’s the first thing that’s going cave an actor in, having anxiety about not knowing their lines. I don’t want that."

"I developed this mantra, which is: “I never had a career, I only have work.” And when I say that, I am saying that I’m a better man when I’m working because I don’t want to be that guy that’s sitting by a pool getting bombed on mai tais and Dom Perignon."

"There’s a difference between remorse and regret. I don’t have any regret. And when I say that, what I’m trying to say is that I’m applying my mistakes to my present so that I learned to improve on myself and be a better man. And I do think every movie I’ve made that hasn’t worked has all led me to this place where I’m at now, where I can do a movie like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and I can tell the story with some integrity and authenticity to it. Everything happened for a reason. I have to look at it like that because that’s the healthiest and most positive way of looking at it."

"But let me say one thing: I am completely antidrug. I don’t do drugs. I don’t drink when I work. Sometimes in between movies I’ll have some drinks, but not always. I make so many characters, and I go so internal with them, that sometimes, when I’m not filming, wine or Champagne is like an eraser to a chalkboard. You can erase the character and make a clean slate so you can start making a new character. I hope that makes sense."

"As a film actor, my job is to facilitate the director’s vision. If there’s something I’m doing that they don’t agree with, I drop it."

"I can’t go into specifics or percentages or ratios, but yeah, money is a factor. I’m going to be completely direct about that. There’s no reason not to be. There are times when it’s more of a factor than not. I still have to feel that, whether or not the movie around me entirely works, I’ll be able to deliver something and be fun to watch. But yes, it’s no secret that mistakes have been made in my past that I’ve had to try to correct. Financial mistakes happened with the real estate implosion that occurred, in which the lion’s share of everything I had earned was pretty much eradicated. But one thing I wasn’t going to do was file for bankruptcy. I had this pride thing where I wanted to work my way through anything, which was both good and bad."

"I always say to myself, 'I never had a career, only work.' What I mean by that is sometimes — and I won't mention names — but when you get into this career-minded perception of one's self it can be a slippery slope, and it can lead to things where you start believing in your own mythos and you start taking yourself way too seriously. You become pretentious and then you fall into the realm of diva, and that's when mistakes happen in your personal life and on camera."

"Karaoke is kind of like a prayer. You’re not supposed to videotape that. I’m not a professional singer. I’m just enjoying my life and blowing off some steam with friends."

"I think this quarantine experience, and the fear of the pandemic itself, only augments the closeness we feel with our animal brothers and sisters. It’s interesting timing that this movie is coming out as we slowly begin to emerge from that experience. I was already close with my animals, but it only made us closer because I really needed their support during that time."

"I wanted to create a kind of wild and artistic and bizarre image. I have changed in terms of what I want to express, and what I want my perception to be. But I personally think I’m very boring. I find myself perfectly content staying at home and playing with my cats or spending time with my boys, who are now older and into their own interests."

"Well, all art is therapeutic and a positive place to transmute emotions from the negative into a positive."

"I think I’m going to continue, not so much to remind people or myself, but continue to play parts that allow me to express some meaning or some understanding of what it means to be a person."

"I do love romantic movies, but at my age it doesn’t happen very often. I’ve always admired love stories—the expression of love is like white light to me. Every color of the universe is in the love story."

"Which is a word I don’t like anymore, ‘acting’. I sound like a pretentious fart for saying ‘thespian’ but acting now has become like lying. It sounds like I’m lying. If you’re a great actor, you’re a great liar. ‘Thespian’ seems more like it’s about finding some truth within and then projecting it for others to get it. At least, it does to me. But I’m not always on the same wavelength as everyone else."

"I had gone on a bit of a tear for a while, exploring what I thought I could do with the boundaries or the limitations of film performance, and I had this philosophy, if you will, that what you could do in one art form, you might be able to do in another, and why not try it? Why not try something surrealistic or operatic or abstract or impressionistic in film performance? It was more experimental. A lot of it was very satisfying and very rewarding for me and my personal dreams about what I wanted to examine with film performance, but I had done that, and I felt that I had developed enough life experience, memories, dreams, where I could return to a more naturalistic, quiet style."

"Well, see, I’ve always viewed myself as a student. I would never say, “Oh, I’m a master.” I am a student. In that, I mean the idea is to keep learning and to keep looking and discovering. One of the things that really excites me, if you have that mindset, is working with younger actors."

"If I have my breakfast, then I can think, and that includes spiritual things, or whatever it is I want to do, meditate or read a book or watch a movie, and so I respect the food because that comes first for me. I think the movie shows the power of the experience that we all have with food."

"Nicolas Cage is a student who is on a path in cinema to try to keep learning and finding great characters with which to tell stories with."

"Notice how all the labor considered feminine is also expected to be free or low cost"

"Instead of framing the issue as “progressives v moderates”, the focus should be on what makes the American system of governance incapable of enacting policies supported by the majority of voters."

"We must overthrow the election & support the Trump dictatorship! -1/2 of Republicans. No, that's going too far! We must stick to disenfranchising Black people, gerrymandering districts, installing as many far right judges as possible & ignoring the will of voters! -the other 1/2"

"Amazing how quickly those thin blue line flags turned into weapons against the police, almost like the only true ideological commitment is to white supremacy & literally nothing else"

"When can we stop being surprised that white supremacists are the most violent element in America and actually address/end the violence?"

"Y'all the issue is whiteness. You can try to cut it all these different ways. But the common denominator, through-line, consistent factor & persistent conflict is whiteness. Until folks are ready to confront what whiteness is, its construct & function, we are stuck here. You can approach it from whatever angle you want & discuss religion, imperialism, capitalism, colonialism, whatever you want. You're not getting anywhere without an analysis of whiteness because whiteness is what the rest has been constructed around."

"Ppl seem to operate under the false assumption that the majority of Americans are on the side of equality & progress at any given time in history when it's most often the opposite that's true. That's why the true story of democracy & rights in the USA is one of prolonged struggle"

"The casual nature with which they replay the murder video at all hours of the day on tv says so much about the entire society"

"If you’re trying to find your entry point to the modern movement, I encourage you to identify what issue you’re most passionate about and what talents and skills you want to bring to the fold. Before starting, see if there’s anyone already doing similar work and consider joining up with them so as not to replicate work that’s already being done. If no one is doing what you feel needs to be done, then take it on yourself. Having a community of fellow activists around you is also key to having a network of support and for building collectively."

"I believed strongly in being an engaged citizen and had a certain level of social and political awareness, but my understanding that the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement and its accomplishments shifted during the course of the Obama administration and especially in 2013 when I witnessed the acquittal of George Zimmerman and the attack on voting rights in the state of North Carolina."

"I would really ask everyone, please ask yourself first, what is something that you really care about? What is something that is really resonating for you as an issue, as a concern in this moment. And then please look locally at who is addressing this issue? Where can you support? And ask yourself, “how can I support?”– whether it’s time, whether it is a donation, whether it is spreading awareness, whatever it is."

"you can’t possibly move people who don’t have a collective understanding. We can’t mobilize masses of people in a direction without having a clear sense of what we are mobilizing around."

"Capitalism has to collapse. It has to collapse. I think I would define capitalism as the catastrophe. Capitalism is the unfolding catastrophe. It’s this thing that has grabbed us all in its arms and it is just plummeting down. And it’s a question of are we able to get off before it takes us all down with it?"

"This idea that voting is the full extent of our power is actually disempowering in my view, because what it tells people is that their only time, their only avenue for participating in politics is when they vote."

"here in North Carolina, Republicans launched a specific attack on civics education because they don’t want an educated and engaged and informed population, because those are the kinds of people that hold people accountable. Right?"

"I don’t think most people are well informed on the history of voting rights. I don’t think most people are well informed on the concept of democracy even. And that is all intentional. We have, in my view, experienced a generation of deliberate miseducation and historical revisionism around the civil rights movement specifically, around the history of voting rights, around what voting is"