Michael Moore

"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."