Passivity may be the easy course, but it is hardly the honorable one.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

Sometimes the simplest solution out of conflict is becoming someone’s friend, instead of saying goodbye forever.

I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.

The movie business is based on criminals. Some of them are in movies and some of them make movies.

I try my best for everything. If I don't feel happy, I don't do it.

It's like being in the middle of a tornado. It's like, whooooooosh, you know what I'm saying? It's like Dorothy-you wake up and find yourself in the land of Oz.

I know he'd be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly.

COULD I PASS A WEEK IN THE INSANE WARD AT BLACKWELL'S ISLAND? I SAID I COULD AND I WOULD. AND I DID.

You can't escape what you are, but you also should know what you could be. Why you're fighting.

The momentum of production keeps you from giving up, so it's really the editing and writing phases where things can look bleakest.

I think I've made a career out of making despicable people likable.