Film Directors From The United States

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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.)"

"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.""

"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.""

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

"May 3, 325: Rome built."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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 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."

"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."

"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."

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

"[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?"

"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."

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

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

"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?""

"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."

"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?"

"“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.”"

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Are you insane?!"

"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]."

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

"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."