People From New Jersey

"The male is a biological accident: the y(male) gene is an incomplete x(female) gene, that is, has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion.... To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples."

"It is now technically feasible to reproduce without the aid of males (or, for that matter, females) and to produce only females. We must begin immediately to do so. Retaining the male has not even the dubious purpose of reproduction."

""Life" in this "society" being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of "society" being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex."

"Magnificent desolation."

"A busy eleven minutes later we were in Earth orbit. The Earth didn't look much different from the way it had during my first flight, and yet I kept looking at it. From space it has an almost benign quality. Intellectually one could realize there were wars underway, but emotionally it was impossible to understand such things. The thought reoccurred that wars are generally fought for territory or are disputes over borders; from space the arbitrary borders established on Earth cannot be seen."

"A son of the proud city of Montclair, New Jersey, Buzz made his mark in the Annals of West Point by standing first in plebe year in academics and in physical education. The proximity of his home town enabled him to escort frequently, proficiently, and with great variety. As evidenced by his fine record at the Academy, Buzz should make a capable, dependable, and efficient officer in the U.S. Air Force."

"But failure is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that you are alive and growing."

"Don't waste the Earth — it is our Jewel!"

"I think I am a goner. If I die, I die a true American; and what grieves me most is, thinking that I've been murdered by a set of Irish - by Morrissey in particular."

"Of course there are boob and bad reporters who bring in boob and bad items which are printed, and which make so many papers what they are. But there are more intelligent men who try to bring in intelligent items, only to see them changed into imbecile items, with the result that they may easily give up trying, and accustom themselves instead to the spirit of the office...."

"Forbidden to write anything critical of the Fascist regime, they could only report what the hierarchy wanted them to report. The clever and honest American and British journalists, however, did insinuate startling facts in their stories; these insinuations, unfortunately, were between the lines and not for those who read as they run, and the American public is mostly a running reading public."

"One of the biggest pieces of bunkum shoved down the American throat was the story of the 1929 Italian election. For this I cannot blame my colleagues."

"The failure of a free press in most countries is usually blamed on the readers. Every nation gets the government—and the press—it deserves. This is too facile a remark. The people deserve better in most governments and press. Readers, in millions of cases, have no way of finding out whether their newspapers are fair or not, honest or distorted, truthful or colored...."

"There are less than a dozen independent newspapers in the whole country, and even that small number is dependent on advertisers and other things, and all these other things which revolve around money and profit make real independence impossible. No newspaper which is supporting one class of society is independent."

"Never grow weary of protesting. In this sensitive business of dealing with the public which depends on faith and good will, protest is a most effective weapon. Therefore protest."

"Only in democratic countries is there the beginning of a suspicion that the old axioms about the press being the bulwark of liberty is something that affects the daily life of the people—that it is a living warning rather than an ancient wisecrack. A people that wants to be free must arm itself with a free press."

"But much more vicious than these cases is the majority of foreign correspondents who never have to be placed against the wall, who are never told what to write and how to write it, but who know from contact with the great minds of the press lords or from the simple deduction that the bosses are in big business and the news must be slanted accordingly, or from the general intangible atmosphere which prevails everywhere, what they can do and what they must never do. The most stupid boast in the history of present-day journalism is that of the writer who says, "I have never been given orders; I am free to do as I like.""

"I am merely trying to illustrate one of the fundamental facts about American journalism today, the fact that the servants of the press lords are slaves very much as they have always been, and that any attempt at revolt is immediately punished with the economic weapon."

"We scent the air of the office. We realize that certain things are wanted, certain things unwanted. There is an atmosphere favorable to Fascism. We find that out when some little pro-Mussolini item is played up, some big item, not so pleasant to the hero of our era, played down, or left out. In the future we send pro-Mussolini stuff only. We get a cable of congratulations."

"Even Zathras say, Braves suck."

"We have an obligation to one another, responsibilities and trusts. That does not mean we must be pigeons, that we must be exploited. But it does mean that we should look out for one another when and as much as we can; and that we have a personal responsibility for our behavior; and that our behavior has consequences of a very real and profound nature. We are not powerless. We have tremendous potential for good or ill. How we choose to use that power is up to us; but first we must choose to use it. We're told every day, "You can't change the world." But the world is changing every day. Only question is … who's doing it? You or somebody else?"

"Stun settings are for people who can't commit."

"You can't let the outside world, or your perception of yourself in it, affect the work; that way madness lies. The only correct approach is to ensure that whatever you write, whenever you write it, you strive to make it better than the last thing you wrote."

"The more important the emotion is, the fewer words required to express it: Will you go out with me? I think I like you. I care for you. I love you. Marry me. Goodbye."

": Bereft of my technology... mystic armor damaged... offensive and defensive capabilities minimal. Enemy forces... [a horde of demons closes in] substantial. It matters not. Even cornered, to my last breath I remain who and what I am. I will not hide, nor tremble, nor beg. Let them come and reckon with fury that is DOOM defiant. Here I stand, hell-horde! Unbowed! But understand: If it is my destiny that I should perish this day, I shall not go down easily... and I shall NOT go down ALONE. Demons: RIP its SKIN. Wear it for HIDE. Its EYES for me. Tear its FLESH from its BONES. Doctor Doom: Yes, come, and let us make an end of it — there is DOOM enough for ALL!"

"As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it’s only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it’s gone forever. No afterlives, no second chances, no backsies. So there can be nothing crueler than the abuse, destruction or wanton taking of a life. It is a crime no less than burning the Mona Lisa, for there is always just one of each. So I cannot forgive."

"Your assumption, and the truth, dine at totally separate tables."

"I like to consider my mind an open door. It's just not a revolving door."

"I think it behooves us to treat our characters' beliefs with some measure of respect, whatever he believes in. I mean I'm an atheist myself, but I don't have to believe in Minbari to write about Minbari. I think if that person is a religious character, then you have to treat them with integrity and deal with them properly. As a result, this show is very popular with a lot of religious folks."

"They told us not to wish in the first place, not to aspire, not to try; to be quiet, to play nice, to shoot low and aspire not at all. They are always wrong. Follow your dreams. Make your wishes. Create the future. And above all, believe in yourself. That is the lesson of Babylon 5."

"I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks the use of an angelic (or seemingly angelic character), whose likes have been written about for, oh, about 4,000 years, is ripping off Star Trek, has his head so thoroughly up his ass as to have blipped into an entirely new intestinally-based reality and desperately needs to get a wider frame of reference."

"There's nothing wrong with the word conspiracy. It just means 'to breathe together'."

"Now let's talk about Grover Norquist who really sort of embodies everything that is wrong with the type of mindset that dominates today's Republican party. He is a conservative strategist and he is the head of Americans for Tax Reform. He has also now unfortunately launched The Media Freedom Project. Now, as you know, they cleverly name things so they sound really good but what it means is IT WILL KILL YOU, metaphorically speaking. If Grover Norquist has launched The Media Freedom Project, you can bet what it means is this is going to be not unlike a communist politboro. So, for the last 30 years, as many of you may or may not know, the right-wing has tried to restructure society, restructure the economy, and to bring the government to an unresponsive place where it was pre-New Deal, pre-The Great Society, pre-social safety nets, pre-social justice issues, environmental protections, child labor laws, public health and safety, seat belts, birth control, voting rights, desegregation: these are all things that liberals and progressives have brought you, and these are all things that right-wingers and conservatives enjoy and take for granted. Yet they still say bleeding-heart-liberal or liberal, but without liberals we wouldn't have unions. We wouldn't have environmental protections. We wouldn't have seat belts or birth control or the ACLU! Any of these things! This is what liberals and progressives, whether they call themselves that or not, do. They've fought for it. They've died for it. They've gotten their asses kicked for it. So whenever anybody says liberals are wimps, please remind them that liberals and progressives have died and suffered grievous bodily harm to bring you all of the things politicians brag about, domestically and internationally. Grover Norquist wants to bring government back to the time of robber barons and (I don't even know what you call it) and uh, debtor prisons, and Social Darwinism, and before Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle and we had uh, laws that prevented you from having fingers in your chili!"

"Patriot Act is in fact a conspiracy of the 43d Reich."

"It is not crazy to think that powerful people do some pretty horrible things. And maybe they get out of hand. Maybe it just gets away from them. It snowballs."

"The reason the corporate media serves the Republican agenda so much is it means they don't have to work hard. They don't have to do anything. They don't have to do investigative journalism. They don't have to get into the dirty waters of speaking truth to power. If the corporate media continues to serve their Republican masters, then their job is easy peasy. It's nuttin'. You go to Matt Drudge. You go get some stuff from Karl Rove. You go to Grover Norquist meetings. You get the talking points. Easy peasy."

"It sounds like I'm always being facetious. That's why I never get voice over work. 'You sound like you hate the product.'"

"...because we don't have a Fairness Doctrine, and because we have further media consolidation, and because we have a craptastic corporate media, WE DON'T HAVE NEWS! We don't have an informed populous and we don't have a democracy... Everyone in the world knows that America, (in its current state, because of right-wingers) that the right wing arm of this country (that speaks for this country unfortunately) has no credibility when it comes to human rights or independent media."

"The new Republican party. Accountability last. If ever. That is the Republican party. Now I am confident we progressives, we liberals, can change this, but it's gonna take a lot of work and we can hustle it along faster: you know the universe does tilt towards justice eventually, but we can make it tilt faster if we continue to work together in Democratic circles, liberal circles, progressive circles, libertarian circles, and true conservative circles to try and change the type of people we elect and the type of news media we have and the type of pundits we allow to pollute our airwaves. Myself included. I shouldn't be a pundit. I don't know why I am, but they asked me to, and once your name is in the rolodex, you're in. So sometimes I go on -yeah I stink. I'm a stinky pundit! ...well, compared to the pundits they have I'm fantastic! But in the real world, I stink, and should not be a pundit."

"The majority of Americans, there is no doubt about it, they support a woman's right to choose. They support the separation of church and state. They support environmental protections. They support laws that regulate business, because remember deregulation is essentially lawlessness. And the bankruptcy bill and the energy bill that the Bush administration has pushed are gifts to big business and the majority of Americans, if they were to understand that, if their news media did their job, they wouldn't support it. They just wouldn't. And also they are just too busy in the course of a day, living their lives, and putting their kids through school, and putting food on the table, to hate gay people and black people and women enough, and to pray for the end of days enough, as the Bush administration would like them to. As you know there's a number of lawsuits filed against No Child Left Behind because the government has required that schools adhere to No Child Left Behind, yet haven't funded it! Of course they haven't! Of course they haven't, because the Bush regime doesn't believe in funding education because if you fund education you will have a more educated populace. If you have a more educated populace, you will have critical thinking. If you have critical thinking, you cannot push this agenda that they have and you won't have as many people that are so willing to serve in the armed forces for Dick Cheney. Y'know, if you have a more educated, knowledgable, critically-thinking populace, they will be less willing to fight and die for Dick Cheney! You know it really is that simple. And most people join the army, navy, air force, marines, to pay for their education, to better themselves, to see the world. That is fine, but if the young people are joining the armed forces to protect democracy, you gotta stay here! Because we need that here. We are losing democracy all the time under the Bush regime and Theocracy, where it will be fine, but it's just gonna take awhile."

"Unbelievable! Unbelieveable! No stem-cell research. Can't have stem-cell research. Can't have reproductive rights. But by God we can bomb the shite out of anybody in the world! And we can have policies that are put forth by the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, and CAFTA and NAFTA that will destroy lives. That will destroy the environment. That will harm fetal development. I mean is it not insanity? Is it not so obvious at this point to some people, to most people rather that this Bush administration is now uh- comically! comically uhm --I don't even know what the word is! I can't think of the word! I can't think of words!"

"To a right-winger, unions are awful. Why do right-wingers hate unions? Because collective bargaining is the power that a worker has against the corporation. Right-wingers hate that."

"Anybody who French bashes just might as well wear a badge that says 'I am a follower! I don't think for myself and I have no idea what I'm talking about.' That would be a French basher."

"You know George W. Bush is a war-time president, he says - proudly. Guess what. War is failure! When you are at war, you have failed! When you have gone to a war of choice and lied about it, you're a double-triple, triple-quadruple failure! Or a warlord. It's called a warlord in other countries. A war time president here. One man's ceiling I guess is another man's floor. George Bush is a warlord. He's a failure!"

"Hey, who wants to hear the stories about my ruptured ovarian cysts? Do you? It's great. It is a story that has been passed down from generation to generation and we love it. So here's the story. I was looping a film, and I sneezed, and passed out. They thought I had appendicitis so they took me to the hospital, but as it turns out, I had ruptured a series of ovarian cysts that unbeknownst to me were residing in my area, and as you know if you've seen me work before I still have the 'don't ask don't tell' policy with my vagina. I don't bother it. It- She. She minds her own beeswax. I stay up here. She doesn't sass me. You know no back talk. None of that. She's not flippant at all with me. So we had to find out about my cyst by having a very thorough exam by the gynecologist. Again, another cure for hubris if you're suffering from that. Whilst he's down there, he peers up from between my knees and goes 'you know my wife and I... LOVE you on The Larry Sanders Show!' And I was like 'That is so great and now I think you can enjoy it on a whole 'nother level, you and your wife!' And with that I left the office, and the thing is is that I've noticed is that I get recognized rarely but only at inconvenient times when it would be not good to be recognized. There is- uhm.. Whenever I'm coming out of a public restroom. Usually Starbucks, go figure. I don't know why but inevitably someone will be like a fan out of the restroom but let me say this and you know I don't like to work blue and this next theory is not for the squeamish but let me just say this. I'll put it this way. The person who was in the bathroom prior to me? Let's say, compromised the integrity of the room? Shall we say? Kind of had their way with the bowl. And hey man I know the stall she is a harsh mistress sometimes. I know that. I'm no stranger to the fight but, it's not me! You know? And so it's like the person ahead of me who shows no respect and, I'll come out and the person's about to go in and I'm just like 'aw man.' Because you know they're gonna say, 'I saw the girl I don't know what her name is but that girl, she stinks!'"

"When I see guys in bars wearing the real fitted kind of Calvin Klein v-neck t-shirts I just want to go up to them and be like, 'Oh, do you work out? Your tricep looks so great - thank you.'"

"All roads lead to my dogs, don't they?"

"There's always [on women's magazines] that great photo of the actress or model lifting up her shirt just to show you the bone structure and the six-pack of her own. It's almost like when horses are auctioned and they show you their teeth. 'Am I good enough?'"

"You know what is good about these Dixie Chicks burnings or bashings? It's a wonderful, wonderful way for really stupid people to hook up. They meet, they throw some things on the fire, they talk about Vin Diesel, they tell stories about who their favorite Fox anchor is, they exchange phone numbers and in some cases has led to marriages."

"Red flag of the eating disorder: the muffin. Keep your eye on the ladies with the muffins...and sometimes I'll just eat the muffin top."