Nothing is so obvious that it's obvious.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it without a sense of ironic futility.

I like to point out that people very often confuse the idea that truth is subjective with the fact that truth is perishable.

People like nonfiction presented to them in a certain way, so that they don't have to think about whether it's true or not. They like it to have that imprimatur of respectability, of genuineness.

They say seeing is believing, but the opposite is true. Believing is seeing.

I'm really interested in self-deception. Really interested in how people live in bubble universes. How people can fail to see the seemingly obvious.

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

My stuff always starts with interviews. I start interviewing people, and then slowly but surely, a movie insinuates itself.

Everything is a reenactment. We are reenacting the world in the mind. The world is not inside there. It does not reside in the gray matter of the brain.

What is it that angers us?... We have been tricked. In essence, we have been lied to. The problem is not that the photograph has been manipulated, but that we have been manipulated by the photograph.

I think calling someone a character is a compliment.

Don't pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it.

No man can break any of the Ten Commandments. He can only break himself against them.

People often ask me why don't you have a girlfriend. Then I smile and say: I have thousands some just haven't met me yet

The role of the federal government, if any, is to create more school choice.

I'm much more interested in making people laugh than getting applause breaks.

The culture is just so coarse that you have to take it to that level and people will be like, 'Whoa!' And then you can make people think about stuff. It's kind of like shock therapy.

Sometimes you need to get hit in the head to realize that you're in a fight.

I need my trusty Mac laptop to write. I can't work with anything else. I'm used to the feel of the keys. I also like, more than anything else, Apple's Pages.

I went through a pretty big David Bowie period when I was younger, and that has affected me profoundly in my life and my work.

The thunder of love is unassailable.