“Hollywood is for-profit, is what Hollywood is. All the studios are owned by big, megacorporations that are the furthest thing from liberal you can possibly imagine.”

The crush of lobbyists on Washington and purchase of the media by corporations has created a big business-run government and a worthless press leaving Americans screwed and ill-informed.

Every time a congressman or pundit says its ‘class warfare’ to increase taxes on the wealthy, it’s a massive lie.

There’s such an aggressively a political movement in the US that anything that smells of being political – even the term “political” is so ridiculous, when you think about it.

In general, people like that are going to be more progressive, more open minded, a little more altruistic.

I could see how people get addicted to animation, and I understand why it’s so great for comedy. You can do whatever you want and it just happens.

Any time Chris Nolan wants to call me for advice, he can.

The idea of 24-hour news, if you really step back, is pretty insane. Just even saying ’24-hour news’ almost has satire laced in it.

There are many aspects to directing that have a romantic place in people’s minds.

Nothing is funnier than confidently doing the wrong thing.

I went to Temple University, and had to get loans. So I grew up in a world where I saw the government helping individuals pull themselves up, and saw it work very successfully.

I don’t want to speak for my movies; you could say my movies are just completely silly and dumb, but in the case of ‘Idiocracy’ and ‘Borat,’ without a doubt there is a really subversive and sophisticated assault on American culture.

The way you really stop Al-Qaeda is by stopping their funding. It’s not by carpet-bombing or land invasions or anything.

All you can really do as director is sort of set a tone.

I think American culture had just become so disengaged from the process of government, and we’d been so fuzzed out by our pop culture around us, that I don’t think people really saw this guy for what he was.

There’s always way less improv than people think. The truth is something like 15 percent.

Creative freedom is a huge carrot.

Everyone expects us to have a sense of urgency for life’s big things. Life measures us by how we engage ourselves in the little things.

The Big Bang banged, and for some reason we’re here. And that’s astonishing. And that we can understand that, that’s the most astonishing.

The most important question regarding Big Data at almost any company is: How much are your customers really worth?

I am not a pest,” Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.

If you get a no from somebody, don’t say, ‘I’m going to take this as some big cosmic signal.’ No, you just got a no, deal with it. Just go to the next step.

The first big lead that I had on Broadway was in a show called La Strada.

Yes, but personally I was never a big acid head.

It was true, she thought, that the big things awe us but the little things touch us.