Background Image

...

I Was Taught From A Very Early Age That It Was Probably The Most American Thing You Can Do Is To Question What's Going On And To Try To Fix Things That You See That Aren't Right. I Believed That As A Young Person, And I Believe That Today.

-Michael Moore

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Was Taught From

Michael Moore

...

I Was Taught From A Very Early Age That It Was Probably The Most American Thing You Can Do Is To Question What's Going On And To Try To Fix Things That You See That Aren't Right. I Believed That As A Young Person, And I Believe That Today.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Michael Moore

You Know He's [george W. Bush] There Illegally. You Know He Was Not Elected Either By The Popular Vote Or By The Vote In Florida.

I Was One Of The First 18-year-olds In The United States Elected To Public Office Right After 18-year-olds Got The Right To Vote Back In The Early '70s. I Ran For The Board Of Education.

Our Laws Demand That A Corporation Have A Fiduciary Responsibility With Shareholders To Maximize Profits. They Are Legally Required To Make As Much Money As Possible, Any Way Possible Within 'the Law.'

So Is There A Difference Between Democrats And Republicans? Sure. The Democrats Say One Thing ("save The Planet!") And Then Do Another--quietly Holding Hands Behind The Scenes With The Bastards Who Make This World A Dirtier, Meaner Place. The Republicans Just Come Right Out And Give The Bastards A Corner Office In The West Wing. That's The Difference.

We Reward People For Making Money Off Money, And Moving Money Around And Dividing Up Mortgages A Thousand Times Over, Selling It To China... And It Becomes This Shell Game.

First Of All, The American People Are Inundated With Advertisement After Advertisement Of You Buy, Buy, Buy. You've Got To Have The Latest Thing. The Ipad 1 Isn't Any Good Anymore, You've Got To Have The Ipad 2. The Iphone 4, Now You've Got To Have Iphone 4s. Now You've Got To Have The 5b, Now You've Got To Have The 6c.

As You Have Fewer And Fewer Voices In A Democracy, In A Free Society, It's Not Good To Limit The Number Of Voices.

The Difference Between Ignorant And Educated People Is That The Latter Know More Facts. But That Has Nothing To Do With Whether They Are Stupid Or Intelligent. The Difference Between Stupid And Intelligent People-and This Is True Whether Or Not They Are Well-educated-is That Intelligent People Can Handle Subtlety. They Are Not Baffled By Ambiguous Or Even Contradictory Situations-in Fact, They Expect Them And Are Apt To Become Suspicious When Things Seem Overly Straightforward.

The Iraqis Who Have Risen Up Against The Occupation Are Not 'insurgents' Or 'terrorists' Or 'the Enemy.' They Are The Revolution, The Minutemen, And Their Numbers Will Grow - And They Will Win.

Television Has Its Own Award. It's Called The Emmy. It's A Good Award. I Like It. I Have One. But You Don't See Movies Like 'the King's Speech' Win Oscars And Then Go To Tv And Qualify For Emmys. In Documentaries, Some Networks Have Been Able To Game The System.

My Dad Was An Assembly Line Worker At Ac Spark Plug, Which Was A Division Of General Motors, And His Job Was To Build And Then Inspect The Little Spark Plugs As They Came Off The Line.

Instead Of The Government Spending $400,000 On Immunisation, We May Get Far Better Health Outcomes If We Spend $100,000 In Some Other Way, On Nutrition For Example...when You Have An Expenditure On Getting Your Community Healthier, Then The Resistance To Many Childhood Diseases Is Stronger.

I Realized That This Was The Big Secret Of Democracy -- That Change Can Occur By Starting Off With Just A Few People Doing Something.

The No. 1 Cause Of Bankruptcies Is Medical Bills.

We All Need To Be Huge Supporters Of The Theatrical Documentary.

Documentaries Are A Form Of Journalism.

I Say Stupid White Men Are Always The Problem. That's Never Going To Change.

I Did Not Like 'the Hurt Locker.' It's A Lazy Way To Make A Movie, Frankly. I Could Put You On The Edge Of Your Seat Quite Easily, And Have You Feel The Tension For 2 Hours, If Every Other Scene Practically Is, 'should We Cut The Red Wire Or The Green Wire?'

I Get Called 'controversial' All The Time.

Today Just 400 Americans Have More Wealth Than Half Of All Americans Combined.

I Don't Compromise My Values And I Don't Compromise My Work. That's Why I've Been Kicked From One Network To The Next: I Won't Give In.

I'll Tell You Who Doesn't Have Any Personal Responsibility. Companies Like General Electric And Others Who Pay Absolutely No Income Tax.

Occupy Has To Continue As A Bold, In-your-face Movement - Occupying Banks, Corporate Headquarters, Board Meetings, Campuses And Wall Street Itself. We Need Weekly - If Not Daily - Nonviolent Assaults Right On Wall Street.

If You're In A Diabetic Or Prediabetic State, It's Good To Have Medication To Go On For A Period Of Time. But Simply By Making The Changes - Get Your Sleep, 35 Grams Of Fiber And A Half-hour Walk - Your Cholesterol Will Come Down, Your Sugar Will Come Down, And Your Blood Pressure Will Come Down. Only The Minority Of People Can't Control It.

Most Liberals I Know Were For Invading Afghanistan Right After 9/11.

As Far As What I Do Love, I Love Birds; I Love Lavender.

We're Never Gonna Get Rid Of Crazy People. They've Been Around For Thousands Of Years - They'll Continue To Be Around; They'll Continue To Do Horrible Things.

I Just Decided To Make A Movie. I Had No Training, No Film School, But I Had Been To A Lot Of Movies.

A Common Denominator Among Big Guys Like Me Who Are Trying To Take Care Of Our Health Is That We're Not Getting Enough Sleep.

I Have Never Owned A Share Of Stock In My Life, And The Only Time I've Double Dipped Into Anything Is At The Snack Tray.

The Idea That Cinema Can Be Dangerous Is A Great Idea.

I Think That There's Something In The American Psyche, It's Almost This Kind Of Right Or Privilege, This Sense Of Entitlement, To Resolve Our Conflicts With Violence. There's An Arrogance To That Concept If You Think About It. To Actually Have To Sit Down And Talk, To Listen, To Compromise, That's Hard Work.

Now That I Exist In The Mainstream Majority, I'm Not Really So Controversial Any More, Am I? Not Really News.

I'm Interested To See What Happens With Fox News And Phone Hacking. I Really Can't Believe It Just Happens In Great Britain. Because Really, Who Cares About Just Hacking Phones Over There?

We Should Be Licensing Everybody With A Gun. I Have To Have A License For My Dog. I Have To Have A License For My Car. If You’re Going To Do My Hair Later You Have To Have A License ... We Don’t Require A License To Own A Firearm?

I'm From The Midwest, And Guys Like Me Don't Go On Diets. We Don't Do Well On Spinning Classes.

Capitalism Would Have Never Let Me Be A Filmmaker, Living In Flint, Michigan With A High School Education. I Was Going To Have To Make That Happen Myself.

For My Very First Movie, 'roger And Me,' I Made It As Part Of My Deal With Warner Brothers That The Four People That Were Evicted In That Film, That Warner Brothers Would House - Would Pay Their Mortgage Or Their Rent For The Next Two Years To Give Them A Chance To Get On Their Feet.

The 'fiscal Cliff' Is A Ruse, An Invention By The Right And The Rich, To Try And Keep Their Huge Tax Breaks.

If The Guy Out In The Woods With The Michigan Militia Is A Real Estate Negotiator, Instead Of Some Crackpot, And Has A Normal Life, That's Unnerving. You Don't Want To Think It's As Normal As The Guy Next Door, Hedging His Lawn. It's Easier To Demonize Or Separate Them Off From 'us.'

Capitalism Is Against The Things That We Say We Believe In - Democracy, Freedom Of Choice, Fairness. It's Not About Any Of Those Things Now. It's About Protecting The Wealthy And Legalizing Greed.

People Like Me Who Grew Up In A Working-class Town, Who Don't Have A College Education, You Don't Usually Hear From Us.

I Really Didn't Realize The Librarians Were, You Know, Such A Dangerous Group. They Are Subversive. You Think They're Just Sitting There At The Desk, All Quiet And Everything. They're Like Plotting The Revolution, Man. I Wouldn't Mess With Them. You Know, They've Had Their Budgets Cut. They're Paid Nothing. Books Are Falling Apart. The Libraries Are Just Like The Ass End Of Everything, Right?

The Entire Business World Has Figured Out How To Make Huge Buckets Of Money Without Hiring Us To Work For Them.

I Believe That When You Provide Information To People, They Become Less Fearful And They Will Engage More In Their Democracy If They Are Empowered With Information.

Wikileaks, God Bless Them, Will Save Lives As A Result Of Their Actions.

There Is Nowhere In The Four Gospels Where Jesus Uses The Word 'homosexual.'

No Decisions Should Ever Be Made Without Asking The Question, Is This For The Common Good?

I Like Buzzfeed, And I Understand The Pressure That Online Reporters Are Under. But I Think Everyone Agrees That, Despite All The Awesome Kitten Gifs, They're Still Obligated To Be Skeptical Of Government Officials And Ask The Right Questions.

I Still Believe The Lessons I Learned When I Was Raised In A Roman Catholic Household. Like, It's Harder For A Rich Man To Get Into Heaven Than For A Camel To Go Through The Eye Of A Needle.

This Is The Crux Of The Problem: Because The Republicans And The Right Wing Have Been Successful In Almost Eliminating Unions, Everyone Else Has Suffered As A Result.

There's No Such Thing As Enough.

If You Believe In Equality, If You Believe In Standing Up For The Rights Of All, Especially For People Most Affected By Bigotry And Discrimination, Then You Have No Choice But To Be Present And Accounted For When It Comes To Standing Up For Gays And Lesbians In Our Society.

If Your Bank Took Bailout Money, Take Your Money Out Of That Bank And Put It In A Credit Union. Credit Unions Are Owned By The People Who Have Their Money In The Credit Union.

I Had A Newspaper In Flint, Michigan Called The 'flint Voice,' And So It Was A, You Know, Underground, Alternative Newspaper That I Edited And Put Out For About Ten Years.

Part Of My Job Is To Read The Paper, Watch C-span And Show Things That Haven't Been Shown Or Were Buried.

As A Quiet Salute To Beavis And Butthead, I Held Up My Index Finger And Thumb In An "l"-the International Sign For Loser.

My Mum Taught Me How To Read Before I Went To Kindergarden, I Always Thought That Being Able To Read Provided Lightness, Help To Dispel Darkness, Ignorance And Stupidity.

I Went Without Health Insurance Until 'roger & Me,' Basically - From About Age 20 Till About Age 35. With 'roger & Me,' I Joined The Directors Guild And The Writers Guild, And Since Then I've Had Excellent Health Care Managed By The Union.

How Could A Guy Sitting In A Cave In Afghanistan, Have... Plotted So Perfectly The Hijacking Of Four Planes And Then Guaranteed That Three Of Them Would End Up Precisely On Their Targets?

I'm A Highly Flawed Individual, As We All Are, And Because I Was Raised By Jesuits, I'm Constantly, 'what Is It About Me And What I Can Do To Be Better?'

Nothing Seems Crueler--or More Ironic--than These Upper Crusters Who Never Pay A Dime For Their High-priced Shrinks Or Reflexology Sessions To Call Those Who Just Want That Tumor Removed From Their Uterus A Bunch Of Commies. Well, The Revolution Is At Hand And Let's Hope All Those Uninsured Commies Give The Rich Such A Headache That A Whole Bottle Of Advil Won't Be Enough To Take The Pain Way.

Somehow, I Don't Think Jesus Came To Earth To Ring The Bell At The New York Stock Exchange.

I Don't Like To Sit Around Whining About The Corporate Media, How They Control Everything, Own Everything. We Already Know That.

We Live In The Time Where We Have Fictitious Election Results That Elects A Fictitious President. We Live In A Time Where We Have A Man Sending Us To War For Fictitious Reasons. Whether It's The Fictition Of Duct Tape Or Fictition Of Orange Alerts We Are Against This War, Mr. Bush. Shame On You. Mr. Bush, Shame On You. And Any Time You Got The Pope And The Dixie Chicks Against You, Your Time Is Up.

Because I Have An Opinion, I Have Become Public Enemy Number One To The Fox News Channel And The Right Wing.

People Of My Age Who Went To College, Go Into College, You Know What It Cost Back Then? Nothing Or Next To Nothing. At The Most, You Had To Work At Dairy Queen During The Summer And That Would Pay For Your College Education.

I Have Been Aspiring To Write Some Sort Of Literature For A Long Time.

Any Time You Got The Pope And The Dixie Chicks Against You, Your Time Is Up.

A Sane Person Would Think That Wal-mart Would Never Carry 'capitalism: A Love Story' Because It's Simply Not In Their Best Interests To Inform Their Customers Of Their Shady Past.

My Dad Was An Autoworker, My Mom Was A Clerk. Until I Was Thirty-five, I Never Made More Than Fifteen Thousand Dollars A Year.

'champagne' And 'breathmint' Are The First Two Words All Oscar Winners Hear.

Every Parent Wants To Do What's Best For Their Child. Whatever I Can Afford, I'm Going To Get My Kid The Best Education I Can Get.

One Of The Most Ironic Things About Capitalism Is That The Capitalist Will Sell You The Rope To Hang Himself With. Actually They Will Give You The Money To Make A Movie That Makes Them Look Bad, If They Believe They Can Make Money Off It.

The Days Of Using My Name As A Pejorative Are Now Over. The Right Wing Turned Me Into An Accidental Spokesperson For The Liberal, Majority Agenda.

There's Over A Billion People On This Planet That Don't Have Access To Clean Drinking Water.

I Don't Believe That The Bush Administration Had Something To Do With September 11th. I Do Believe That There Were A Lot Of Warning Signals, But I Don't Think They Were Ignored On Purpose - Bush Just Wanted To Go To The Ranch For A Month.

No 22-year-old Should Have To Enter The Real World Already In A Virtual Debtors' Prison.

I Want Us All To Face Our Fears And Stop Behaving Like Our Goal In Life Is To Merely Survive. "surviving" Is For Wimps And Game Show Contestants Stranded In The Jungle Or On A Desert Island. You Are Not Stranded. You Own The Store....you Deserve Better.

I May Be Preaching To The Choir, But The Choir Needs A Good Song.

Capitalism And Democracy Are The Opposite Of Each Other. Capitalism Is A System That Guarantees That A Few Are Going To Do Very Well, And Everybody Else Is Going To Serve The Few. Democracy Means Everybody Has A Seat At The Table. Everybody.

Guarantees That

And Realising That Humour Is The Most Powerful Way To Make A Political Statement And Say The Things That You Want To Say. And It's Not Used Enough, At Least Not In The U.s.

The Majority Of Americans, The Ones Who Never Elected George W. Bush, Are Not Fooled By His Weapons Of Mass Distraction.

Nobody Had A Credit Card When I Was A Kid. No One Had Credit Card Debt. But These Big Companies And Banks Wanted To Know How To Get More Money Out Of People - Get Them Charging Things.

I Think That Capitalism In General Is Responsible, Not For The Worldwide Recession, But For A Lot Of Suffering, Both In The United States And Around The World.

If There Ever Is A Struggle, Making A Good Movie Will Always Supersede The Need To Be Noble.

Should Such An Ignorant People Lead The World? How Did It Come To This In The First Place? 82 Percent Of Us Don't Even Have A Passport! Just A Handful Can Speak A Language Other Than English.

L.a. - Talk About A Cruel City: Patients Are Forcibly Removed From Hospitals.

Back In The Late '90s, I Put Together A Humorous Newsmagazine Program Called 'the Awful Truth' For Bravo. We Helped One Guy Get An Organ Transplant Whose Insurance Company Had Refused To Pay. I Thought, If We Could Save A Guy's Life In A 10-minute Segment On Cable, What Could We Do If We Devoted A Whole Movie To A Whole Bunch Of People?

We Are The Richest Country In The World. We Spend More On Health Care Than Any Other Country. Yet We Have The Worst Health Care In The Western World. Come On. We Can Do Better Than This.

The Real Problem With The Irs Is That They Let General Electric Not Pay Any Taxes -- And 50 Other Corporations -- That's The Real Scandal.

If Anything, I Don't Have To Convince The American Public That We Have A Broken Health-care System. I Think The Majority Of Americans Since They Have To Go Through That Health-care System, Already Know It.

It Turns Out Cuba Has This Incredible Healthcare System For A Very Poor Country.

I Want Us All To Face Our Fears And Stop Behaving Like Our Goal In Life Is To Merely Survive.

Building Up The Arms Did Not Cause The Fall Of Eastern Europe.

This Life Is A Gift, And To Reject That Gift Or Abuse That Gift Is Not Human And Not Worthy Of Us.

There's No Violence Coming From The Occupy Protesters.

There's Nothing Pure About Capitalism.

North Korea Has Taught A Great Lesson To All The Countries In The World, Especially The Rogue Countries Of Dictatorships Or Whatever: If You Don't Want To Be Invaded By America, Get Some Nuclear Weapons.

We Like Nonfiction, And We Live In Fictitious Times.

All Of Our Political Parties Are Bought And Paid For By Corporate America, Wall Street, And The Wealthy Interests. The Republican Party More So, But The Democrats Take Their Share Of The Loot, Too.

Clinton Was A Pretty Good President For A Republican.

For A Documentary Filmmaker, I Do Very Well.

By The End Of The Millenium Five Men Controlled The World's Media. And The People Rejoiced, Because Their Tvs Told Them To.

It Is The Responsibility Of Every Human To Know Their Actions And The Consequences Of Their Actions And To Ask Questions And To Question Things When They Are Wrong.

I Think As A Filmmaker My First Contribution Would Just Be To Make A Good Movie That People Would Love To See And Leave The Theatre Charged, With A Sense Of Excitement.

I've Been Encouraging Documentary Filmmakers To Use More And More Humor, And They're Loath To Do That Because They Think If It's A Documentary It Has To Be Deadly Serious - It Has To Be Like Medicine That You're Supposed To Take. And I Think It's What Keeps The Mass Audience From Going To Documentaries.

Here's What I Don't Think Works: An Economic System That Was Founded In The 16th Century And Another That Was Founded In The 19th Century. I'm Tired Of This Discussion Of Capitalism And Socialism; We Live In The 21st Century, We Need An Economic System That Has Democracy As Its Underpinnings And An Ethical Code.

I Was A Good Little Boy And A Good Student. I've Never Been Arrested.

I Assume Everything I'm Saying In An Email Or Saying On The Telephone Is Being Looked At.

Yeah, I Think Of What I Do As A Work Of Journalism. It's More Like The Op-ed Page, Though. These Are My Opinions. My Point Of View. The Opinions Are Mine And I Let You Make Up Your Own Mind.

Halliburton Is Not A 'company' Doing Business In Iraq. It Is A War Profiteer, Bilking Millions From The Pockets Of Average Americans. In Past Wars They Would Have Been Arrested – Or Worse.

I'm Not A Big Believer In Our Copyright Laws; I Find Them Way Too Restrictive.

I Was Taught From A Very Early Age That It Was Probably The Most American Thing You Can Do Is To Question What's Going On And To Try To Fix Things That You See That Aren't Right. I Believed That As A Young Person, And I Believe That Today.

I've Read Stories Of Slave Owners Who Were Very Generous. They Didn't Keep Them In Shackles, They Didn't Whip The Slaves, They Built Schools And Churches For Them, Free Housing, Free Food, Free Everything. It's Wrong. No Matter How Nice You Make It Look, It's Wrong.

The Worst Way To Defend Our Freedom Is To Let Our Leaders Start Taking Away Our Freedoms! It Is Exactly During Times Like These [a National Crisis] That We Need More Freedom Of Speech, A Strong And Critical Press, And A Citizenry That Is Not Afraid To Stand Up And Say That The Emperor Has No Clothes.

White People Scare The Crap Out Of Me.

If Someone Did This Fahrenheit 9/11 To Get Back At Bush, Then They Did So By Killing Thousands Of People Who Did Not Vote For Him! Boston, New York, D.c., And The Planes' Destination Of California - These Were Places That Voted Against Bush!

The Purpose Of Art Actually Is, In Many Cases, To Make You Feel Quite Uncomfortable. Or At Least To Go To That Place That's Already Of Discomfort Inside Of You And Tap Into That.

The Media, The Corporations, The Politicians…have All Done Such A Good Job Of Scaring The American Public, It’s Come To The Point Where They Don’t Need To Give Any Reason At All.

I Don't Even Like Dvds. Honest To God, In My Lifetime, I Might Have Rented A Dozen Dvds, Literally Gone Into A Video Store And Rented A Dozen Dvds In My Lifetime, Because I Don't Like To See Movies That Way. I Like To See Them On The Big Screen.

The Motivation For War Is Simple. The U.s. Government Started The War With Iraq In Order To Make It Easy For U.s. Corporations To Do Business In Other Countries. They Intend To Use Cheap Labor In Those Countries, Which Will Make Americans Rich.

You Do Not Have The Right To Take Another Human's Life, Unless It's In Strict Self-defense.

There's Been Almost A Dozen Films That Have Been Made Against Me. There's Actually More Films Made Attacking Me Than Films I've Made.

I've Always Been Sort Of Confused By The Trajectory My Life Has Taken. I Was Supposed To Be On An Assembly Line Building Buicks.

The American Media Wants To Pump You Full Of Fear.

If We Say, 'the Government Sucks,' We're Kind Of Saying That We Suck.

The Upper 1 Percent, The People Down On Wall Street, The Corporate Executives, They're The People That Control This Economy.

I Say One Evil Empire Down...one To Go.

If One Job Doesn't Pay All The Bills, Don't Worry. You Can Get Another One And Another One And Another One.

You Survive By Having Your Fear Compass Calibrated Correctly. Our Compass Is Off Now Because We're Being Told To Be Afraid Of Everything. The Things That We're Frightened Of, Or Told To Be Frightened Of, Are Not Necessarily The Things That We Need To Fear.

When I Make A Film, I'm Not Doing It Purely For Political Reasons. If I Just Wanted To Do That, I'd Run For Office.

I Don't Want To Involve Myself In The Various Arguments About Why Israel Was Created . . . . . I Want To Deal With The Situation At Hand Which Is The Ongoing Killing On Both Sides. . . . . . . It's True That There's Also Much Oppression Of Palestinians In Arab Countries, Where Palestinians Aren't Allowed To Vote Or Own Property And Are Treated As Second Class Citizens And Pawns In The Fight Against Israel. But I'm Not Going To Spend My Time On This Since There Is Isn't A Whole Lot I Can Do About It.

Before There Were Unions, There Was No Middle Class.

Listen Friends, You Have To Face The Truth: You Are Never Going To Be Rich... The System Is Rigged In Favor Of The Few, And Your Name Is Not Among Them, Not Now And Not Ever.

You Share Things With People And I Think Information, And Art, And Ideas Should Be Shared.

I Mean If Politics Was My Main Motivation I Would Be Doing Politics. But I'm A Filmmaker.

No One Is Entertained By Economics.

A Lot Of Political People, Especially People On The Left, Have Forgotten The Importance Of Humor As An Incredible Weapon, And A Vehicle Through Which To Affect Change.

Today, Whether It Is A Student Who Holds A Sit-in To Get The Army Recruiters Off His Campus, Or The Mother Of A Dead Soldier Who Refuses To Leave The Front Gate Of The President's Ranch, We Continue To Be Saved By Brave People Who Risk Ridicule And Rejection But End Up Turning Huge Tides Of Public Opinion In The Direction Of Righteousness. We Owe Them Enormous Debts Of Gratitude. It Is Not Easy To Stand Up For What Is Right, Especially When Everyone Else Is Afraid To Leave The Comfortable Path Of Conformity.

My Films Don't Have Instant Impact Because They're Dense With Ideas That People Have Not Thought About. It Takes A While For The American Public To Wrap Its Head Around Some Of The Things I'm Saying.

Democracy Is Not A Spectator Sport, It's A Participatory Event. If We Don't Participate In It, It Ceases To Be A Democracy.

The Left, Liberals, Believe That If We Just Have More Gun Control Laws, All The Problems Are Going To Go Away. Well, I Don't Think So. I Don't Think So. I Think - Yes, It Will, It Will Be Reduced. There's No Question About That.

Post-war Filmmakers Gave Us The Documentary, Rob Reiner Gave Us The Mockumentary And Moore Initiated A Third Genre, The Crockumentary.

Army Specialist Bradley Manning Deserves A Medal, Not Prison.

Bradley Manning

I Think There Are Few Things More Patriotic Than Taking The Time To Make Your Country A Better Place.

I Voted For The Black Guy, And What We Got Was The White Guy

Jesus Told Us That We Would Be Judged By How We Treat The Least Among Us.

Who Among Us Is Not At A Loss For Words? Tears Pour Out. Tears Of Joy. Tears Of Relief. A Stunning, Whopping Landslide Of Hope In A Time Of Deep Despair. In A Nation That Was Founded On Genocide And Then Built On The Backs Of Slaves, It Was An Unexpected Moment, Shocking In Its Simplicity: Barack Obama, A Good Man, A Black Man, Said He Would Bring Change To Washington, And The Majority Of The Country Liked That Idea.

All Art Is About Appealing To Emotion.

I And You And Everyone Else Has To Be A Political Activist.

We As Americans Believe It’s Ok To Kill People. We Believe It’s Ok To Invade A Country That Had Nothing To Do With 9/11. We Think It’s Ok To Invade A Country Where We Think Osama Bin Laden Is And He’s In The Other Country. So We Just Go In And We Just Kill. And We Have The Death Penalty, We Sanction It.

Republicans Are Relentless And They're Smart, Too - They're Not All Dumb - And On Election Day, They'll Be Up At Five In The Morning.

Fahrenheit 9/11: The Temperature Where Freedom Burns!

The American Public Believes That Health Care Is A Right And Not A Commodity.

The Health Insurance Industry Does Not Like To Pay Out Claims, Because They Don't Make Money. The Only Way They Can Make A Profit Is If They Don't Pay For Your Operation. If They Pay For Your Operation And Your Doctor's Appointment And Your Pharmaceuticals, They Don't Make Any Money.

Most People Don't See Themselves As Democrats Or Republicans. They See Themselves As Americans.

Every Fact In My Films Is True. And Yet How Often Do I Have To Read Over And Over Again About Supposed Falsehoods?

I Certainly Believe That I Have No Right To Tell Another Couple Whether They Can Or Cannot Be Married.

Maybe We Should Be Directing Our Anger Elsewhere - Like Toward Wall Street. Why Is It We Never Think Of Big Business When We Think Of Welfare Recipients? Companies Take More Of Our Tax Dollars, And In Much More Questionable Ways, Than Do Those Who Are Trying To Heat Their Apartments With A Kerosene Stove.

New York City Has Become A Place Where It's Not Easy For The Working Class To Even Live.

I've Always Felt So Grateful That I Dropped Out Of School, That I Never Had To Do A Thesis. I Wouldn't Know How To Organise And Structure Myself To Film So That B Follows A And C Follows B.

Greed Has Been With Human Beings Forever. We Have A Number Of Things In Our Species That You Would Call 'the Dark Side,' And Greed Is One Of Them. If You Don't Put Certain Structures In Place Or Restrictions On Those Parts Of Our Being That Come From That Dark Place, Then It Gets Out Of Control.

I Personally Hold Blair More Responsible For This War Than I Do George Bush. The Reason Is, Blair Knows Better, Blair Is Not An Idiot. What Is He Doing Hanging Around This Guy?

[librarians] Are Subversive. You Think They're Just Sitting There At The Desk, All Quiet And Everything. They're Like Plotting The Revolution, Man. I Wouldn't Mess With Them.

How Can There Be Inaccuracy In Comedy?

I Don't Want People Leaving The Theater Depressed After My Movies. I Want Them Angry.

I'm Not A Pundit. I'm Not An Analyst. I Don't Want To Participate In The Existing Debate That's Going On About Whether Or Not You Should Be Able To Have As Many Guns As You Want To Have Or That Guns Are Even The Problem.

15 Of The 19 [september 11th] Hijackers Were From Saudi Arabia.

It's A Lot Of Hard Work To Do A Weekly Tv Show. It's Certainly Not Fun.

Hope For The Best Is What We Do, Right From The Moment We're Born.

In Accordance To The Principles Of Doublethink, It Does Not Matter If The War Is Not Real, Or When It Is, That Victory Is Not Possible. The War Is Not Meant To Be Won. It Is Meant To Be Continuous. The Essential Act Of Modern Warfare Is The Destruction Of The Produce Of Human Labour. A Hierarchical Society Is Only Possible On The Basis Of Poverty And Ignorance. In Principle, The War Effort Is Always Planned To Keep Society On The Brink Of Starvation. The War Is Waged By The Ruling Group Against Its Own Subjects, And Its Object Is Not Victory Over Eurasia Or Eastasia, But To Keep The Very Structure Of Society Intact.

I Think People Should Start To Practice The Words 'president Romney.'

I Hate To Say It, But Killing Is Our Way. We Began America With Genocide, Then Built It With Slaves. The Shootings Will Continue. It's Who We Are.

Openness, Transparency - These Are Among The Few Weapons The Citizenry Has To Protect Itself From The Powerful And The Corrupt... And That Is The Best Thing That Wikileaks Has Done.

In Some States, You Can Vote A Straight Party Ticket, But You Can't Vote For Individual Candidates.

White People Scare The Crap Out Of Me. I Have Never Been Attacked By A Black Person, Never Been Evicted By A Black Person, Never Had My Security Deposit Ripped Off By A Black Landlord, Never Had A Black Landlord, Never Been Pulled Over By A Black Cop, Never Been Sold A Lemon By A Black Car Salesman, Never Seen A Black Car Salesman, Never Had A Black Person Deny Me A Bank Loan, Never Had A Black Person Bury My Movie, And I've Never Heard A Black Person Say, 'we're Going To Eliminate Ten Thousand Jobs Here - Have A Nice Day!'

Three Of The Top Six Documentaries Of All Time, Grossing, Are Made By Me.

I'm Caught Up Probably Just As Much In The Consumer Culture As The Next Person.

I Did A Filmstrip On Pollution In The Davison Area As My Eagle Scout Project And Showed It Around Town. Businesses Who Were The Polluters Were Mad At Me.

If I Were A Capitalist I Would Not Give My Employees Health Insurance With No Deductible, Which I Do, Including Dental, And Paid Pregnancy Leave. That's Not Called Capitalism, That's Called Being A Christian And Someone Who Believes In Democracy, So That Everyone Should Get A Fair Slice Of The Pie.

Contrary To What Those In Power Would Like You To Believe So That You'll Give Up Your Pension, Cut Your Wages, And Settle For The Life Your Great-grandparents Had, America Is Not Broke. Not By A Long Shot. The Country Is Awash In Wealth And Cash.

What The Media Are Telling You To Be Afraid Of Are The Wrong Things. Fear Is A Necessary Ingredient Of Our Survival Instincts.

I Was Kind Of A Strange Child. My Parents Knew Early On That Something Must Have Been Wrong With Me. I Crawled Backwards Until I Was Two, But Had Kennedy's Inaugural Address Memorized By The Time I Was Six.

I'm Used To My Films Having Little Effect On Making The World A Better Place.

It Should Be A Crime To Make A Profit Off Somebody Being Sick.

It Really Is Disgusting When A Guy In A Ball Cap With A High School Education Is The One Asking The Tough Questions.

Tough Questions

The Vast Majority Of The Guns In The U.s. Are Sold To White People Who Live In The Suburbs Or The Country. When We Fantasize About Being Mugged Or Home Invaded, What's The Image Of The Perpetrator In Our Heads? Is It The Freckled-face Kid From Down The Street - Or Is It Someone Who Is, If Not Black, At Least Poor?

There's Not Democracy In The Workplace. I Mean, Through Most Of Our Daily Lives, The Idea Of Democracy Is Fairly Nonexistent. And I Think Things Work Better When The People Who Have To Work With Whatever It Is We're Working With Have A Say In How It's Working.

We Have To See That We're A Part Of Each Other, And We Have To Take Care Of Each Other. The Reason Why They Have Universal Health Care In Canada And Britain, These Other Places? Because They Believe If One Suffers, Everybody Suffers.

You Think History Is Going To Remember The United States As A Great Democracy? No, They're Going To Think Of Us As A Nation That Became Addicted To War. They'll Call Us Warlords.

Horace's Best Ode Would Not Please A Young Woman As Much As The Mediocre Verses Of The Young Man She Is In Love With.

I Made 'bowling For Columbine' In The Hope The School Shootings Would Stop And That We Would Address The Issue Of How Easy It Is To Get A Gun In The United States, And Tragically, Those School Shootings Continue.

I Think If People Who Are Attacking Me Or Against Me, If They Would Just Watch One Of My Films, They Would - They May Not Agree With Me Politically On All The Things I'm Saying. But They Will Know At The End Of The Film That I Love This Country And That I Have A Heart. And They'll Have A Good Laugh Throughout The Film.

If The Founding Fathers Could Have Looked Into A Crystal Ball And Seen Ak-47s And Glock Semi-automatic Pistols, I Think They Would Say, You Know, 'that's Not Really What We Mean When We Say Bear Arms.'

Nobody Has Been Arrested On Wall Street For The Crash Of 2008. They're Not Paying Their Fair Share Of The Taxes. And Now With The Citizens United Case Of The Supreme Court, They Get To Buy Politicians Up Out In The Open.

Citizens United

Everybody Gets Sick; Everybody Has Had A Problem With Insurance Or The Prescription Drugs They're Supposed To Be Taking Or An Elderly Parent Who Needs Care.

A Government Run By Billionaires For Billionaires Is An Affront To Freedom And Morality And Humanity.

I Don't 'support The Troops' Or Any Of Those Other Hollow And Hypocritical Platitudes Uttered By Republicans And Frightened Democrats. Here's What I Do Support: I Support Them Coming Home. I Support Them Being Treated Well.

You Can't Regulate Child Labor. You Can't Regulate Slavery. Some Things Are Just Wrong.

Trending Author

Voltairine De Cleyre

Charles Horton Cooley

Category