“I don’t think there’s ever been a moment in history where that, as an artistic message, has played very well, because people in their hearts know that’s terrible and a lie.”

“Firewall” seems both scary and protective at the same time. And how often does that happen within one word besides “military” and “government?”

My mom then got Pell Grants, put herself through college to get a degree to get a better job. Because we were broke, I then had to go to a state school.

I think that the job of art and culture is to jump on that time and realize that it’s there and to push it just a little bit faster.

This was the definition in Webster’s up until 1987 when a corporation bought Webster’s and changed it to exclude any mention of corporations.

Hardly socialism. In fact, it was a Republican plan to begin with.

We’re always looking for the backbone, the central idea, and once you have that you know everything can circle around it.

It so happens that America, according to all the polls that are out there, is pretty progressive. So you’re not going to see messages that support Ayn Randian individualism at the cost of the whole, because most people don’t agree with that.

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.

I’ve gotten like five laughs in movies, just off guy hugs.

It’s one thing to break stuff and damage people’s possessions, but when you start aiming at the ideology of America, that’s dangerous comedy.

Sometimes you’ll put something in and it will just die so hard that it’ll almost kill the movie.

It’s just funny that Americans have to contend with 2000 channels, and 60 different specific news sources, and the confusion that it creates, and the junk that we get to see is hilarious.

If all else fails, you can always be a pro.

The easiest time to be funny is during a fairly serious situation. That way, you can break the ice.

You have to be able to fail with the improv. You have to not care.

Blanket cynicism toward government has always existed.

We all have our individual artistic temperaments as well as partisanships in creative directions. And we have strong opinions on the merits of the products of our occupation.

When you have a reputation for making not only good songs but great albums, that in itself creates added artistic pressure. But, at the end of the day, I guess that pressure is something I welcome.

Artistic vision comes from a mind clear enough to fall in love with what we see.

Artistic vision is having the clarity to fall in love with what you see.

To be ‘intellectual’ or ‘artistic’ or, in their own word, to be ‘highbrow,’ is to be priggish and of dubious virtue.

We recommend for the training of teachers not only a considerable artistic education in general but special attention to the art of reading.

Any artist should be grateful for a naive grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.

There can be no ‘graduated exercises in drawing’ leading up to an artistic creation. That goal can be attained only through the development of mechanical technique and through the freedom of the spirit.