There is always room for Gramsci's "optimism of the will."

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.

An illusion shared by everyone becomes a reality.

To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid “big” sins-is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?

All artists dream of a silence which they must enter, as some creatures return to the sea to spawn.

Even in Britain, the trade unions tell me that employment contracts have less protection than in the past.

There's no shame in having to fight every day, but fighting every day, and presumably, if you're still alive to hear these words or read this interview, then you are winning your war. You're here.

O bluebird, welcome back again, Thy azure coat and ruddy vest, Are hues that April loveth best.

Nobody rises above mediocrity unless they use the brains of other people.

The crazy thing about the entertainment industry now is that you can't do just one thing. If you're focusing in on just one thing you're pretty much doomed.

I have no patience with anyone born after World War II. You have to explain everything to these people.

Love talked about is easily turned aside, but love demonstrated is irresistible.