People From New York State

"Certainly the most (inf)famous person who came along this way was Major General Philip Henry Sheridan, a squat-little thirty-four-year old, foul-mouthed Ohioan. He was supposed to have graduated from West Point in 1852, but he had been suspended for gross misconduct during his senior year and therefore did not graduate until 1853, when he ranked in the bottom third of his class, Sheridan began his Civil War service in the western army, where his rise had been meteoric. It has been suggested that war seemed to have been a tonic for Philip Sheridan. Simply put, with regards to military results Sheridan just got better and better the longer the war continued. His earliest achievement of note had occurred as a dramatic divisional leader of infantry at Chattanooga in November of 1863."

"How vastly important is it, then, for mothers to have a higher regard for their duties—to feel deeply the immense responsibilities that rest upon them! It is through their ministrations that the world grows worse or better."

"One other exciting- and totally unpredictable- face and force had been added to Grant's arsenal on March 25 when General Philip Sheridan arrived on the Petersburg front with his Army of the Shenandoah, which was primarily a cavalry command. Sheridan was definitely a mercurial personality and often an insubordinate officer, yet it is no accident that Lee's surrender occurred just fourteen days after Sheridan joined Grant at Clay Point, Virginia, absolutely determined to be "in on the kill.""

"No substance in nature, as far as yet known, has, when it reaches the brain, such power to induce mental and moral changes of a disastrous character as alcohol. Its transforming power is marvelous, and often appalling. It seems to open a way of entrance into the soul for all classes of foolish, insane or malignant spirits, who, so long as it remains in contact with the brain, are able to hold possession."

"In fact during this retreat week- and unbeknownst to the gullible inhabitants of Southside Virginia- some of these advance "Confederate-appearing" cavalrymen were definitely not who they seemed to be. Acting on his own without official authorization from his superiors, Major General Phil Sheridan had recruited several specialized groups of spying cavalrymen (whom he designated as "Jesse scouts") who were the proverbial "wolves in sheep's clothing," clad as Confederate horsemen who would question gullible Southern soldiers and civilians concerning "the best routes to take" and exactly where some food supplies might be available for the army. This was a dangerous scheme that Sheridan was employing because under the so-called "rules of war" which both sides had endorsed, presenting oneself in the uniform of the enemy and posing as a member of "the other side" was punishable by an immediate execution, without the slightest pretending of a military court martial or public hearing."

"If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell."

"The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."

"Probably no living soldier was ever more terrible in battle than Sheridan. With the first smell of gunpowder he became a blazing meteor, a pillar of fire to guide his own hosts. The rather small short, heavily built man rose to surpassing stature in his stirrups, to the sublimity of heroism in action; and infused a like spirit in his troops. I think it no exaggeration to say that America never produced his equal, for inspiring an army with courage and leading them into battle. Absolutely fearless imself, with unwavering faith in his cause and his plans, he always raised the courage and faith of others, to the level of his own; passed from rank to rank in action, flaming, fiery, omnipresent, and well-nigh omnipotent."

"The proper strategy consists in the first place in inflicting as telling blows as possible upon the enemy's army, and then causing the inhabitants so much suffering that they must long for peace, and force their government to demand it. The people must be left nothing but their eyes to weep with over the war."

"General Phil Sheridan... had urged the destruction of the bison herds, correctly predicting that when they disappeared the Indians would disappear along with them; by 1885 the bison were virtually extinct, and the Indians were starving to death on the plains."

"Now, boys, lie low, you know, and let 'em come up close, you know, and then rise up and give 'em ———, you know."

"General Grant tended to pick men in his own mold to lead his armies in the field. Phil Sheridan fit his style, as did William Tecumseh Sherman, whose Army of the Cumberland cut a swath into Georgia that resulted in the capture of Atlanta on September 2. This news hit Washington just three weeks after Admiral Farragut had captured Mobile Bay in Alabama and, coupled with Sheridan's victory in Virginia, virtually assured Lincoln's reelection. The next six months would see an endless string of Union victories that all but destroyed the Confederacy. The fall of such Southern strongholds as Nashville, Savannah, Wilmington, Columbia, Petersburg, and Richmond insured a final Union victory that was to come at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia on April 9, 1865."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Our violence is, as you know, cartoon violence."

"(We are) the herpes of American cinema (because) we aren't going anywhere..."

"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."

"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..."

"Mr. Kaufman’s talent can be debated, but his love for his job is stamped on every garish, oozy frame."

"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."

"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."

""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."

"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."

"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."

"I love to dance."

"It is the things of the spirit, the arts of the country, which have always led mankind forward, and it is to this spirit that the craftsmen of the world must lend themselves."

"A good life is found only where the creative spirit abounds, where people are free to experiment and create new ideas within themselves."

"Jane's attitude toward reincarnation (like mine) was strongly ambivalent. The idea of physical life being expressed in many historical situations made emotional and intuitive sense to her. Intellectually, however, she was highly suspicious of the standard notion of reincarnation, particularly as any kind of pat answer to present problems. Thus, when class started to experience the theory of reincarnation in emotionally-charged drama form, Jane would often find herself in a most uncomfortable one-foot-on-the-dock, one-foot-in-the-boat position, at once intellectually scandalized and intuitively involved. Even on those occasions when the inner events would "click," or when Seth gave past-life information that made complete sense to people, Jane worried about it for days afterwards. What was the meaning of such memories? Where did they come from? Were we creating the events through suggestion, combined with a need for emotional outlet? Or did we actually remember people who lived -- in our terms -- long before any of us were born? These questions demanded the class maintain a balance, from which Jane never let things stray too far."

"If a rapist comes to your door, then your own fears and anger and aggression have brought him there. You have broadcast your feelings, and he has picked them up . . . There is a reason -- there are no accidents."

"But in your terms, the population of the Earth is made of counterparts, and so there is, indeed, a relationship; and when you kill an enemy, you are killing a version of yourself."

"To label Seth as a spirit guide is to limit an understanding of what he is . . . The minute I found out after my first book was published that this automatically put me in what people called the psychic field . . . I was so humiliated I could hardly hold my head up. I'm using my writing [and] my life to transform intuitive, sometimes revelationary material into art, where it can be enjoyed, understood to varying degrees, and stand free of the stupid interpretations . . . The whole psychic bit as it is, is intellectually and morally psychologically outrageous as far as I'm concerned and I want no part of it or the vocabulary or the ideas."

"Originally presented in The "Unknown" Reality, the counterpart idea holds that each of us is neurologically and psychically connected to others who are living in roughly the same given time period and exploring related areas of interest of life-themes; counterparts spring, as it were, from the same entity, or source-self, thus gaining experience from many simultaneous viewpoints."

"She said that she was technically a virgin when she married Rob. That after she and Walt were married, when they first came to making love and she caught sight of his penis, she'd cracked up because it was so big and she couldn't see how in hell they'd manage it. She never said in so many words, "I never had sexual interourse with Walt," e.g. But when I asked her, "So you were technically a virgin when you married Rob" (words to this effect), she said yes. She said that whenever she and Rob made love before a Seth session, or before a class session, that the results for the ensuing session were spectacular. And that sometimes she and Rob would make love for the sake of these results in a session."

"The Point of Power Is in the Present."

"Jane never said much about this to me, and the few comments she did make, about a priest who "chased her around the bed," were delivered casually in group settings, with deprecating humor, no hint of the frightening child-molesting scenario or later sexual browbeating that Rob's notes make plain."

"In the realm of ESP, precognition, dreams, and related matters, there are few guideposts and little common sense applied. Most of the books written in the so-called "occult" or "spiritual" fields were worthless nonsense in my opinion -- as were treatises that debunked all subjective experiences as "unscientific.""

"As I became accustomed to keeping dream records, the dreams themselves got "better," with more direct information and precognitive "hits.""

"If you could see the dreams of any town, or neighborhood, or family, or any group of people, would all waking events appear there in bits and pieces?"

"I think that wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience — and laughter."

"You must realize that your personal self grows as naturally out of that universe as, in other terms, any star does, or any flower, or any oak leaf. You are a part of that system. AND WHEN YOU SEND OUT A PLEA, YOU DO INDEED SET THE UNIVERSE IN MOTION, SO THAT THE PLEA IS ANSWERED! And so do you also send help to others, often even when you are not aware of it, as a flower sends out help to someone simply because it is beautiful."

"What struck me more than the book's UFO stories, however, was the common thread weaving among them of breathtaking alterations in consciousness associated with the experiences -- sensations of leaving the body, of flying through the air or being "carried along by the wind," and receiving "startling and novel insights into the nature of reality" that reverberated thereafter with profound, life-changing effects."