I don't talk in sound bites.

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.

If you're white, and you really want to help change things, why not start with yourself?

I watch way too much C-SPAN.

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?'

A majority of this country opposes this war, a majority of this country never voted for this administration.

Any time you've got both the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, you're not long for the White House.

Documentaries are a form of journalism.

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.

There should be no private health insurance companies operating for profit.

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.'

Four hundred obscenely wealthy individuals, 400 little Mubaraks - most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout of 2008 - now have more cash, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined.

I have been aspiring to write some sort of literature for a long time.

I tell everybody on the first day of making a movie that if anyone's here to further their career, they should leave. I'm gonna make the movie in such a way that we won't have a career when this movie comes out. Because the people who hold the moneybags are not going to want to share any of that money with us to make the next movie!

There is nowhere in the four Gospels where Jesus uses the word 'homosexual.'

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.

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.

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?

All religions teach the same basic thing, that you have to stand up for those that are considered the worst.

White people scare the crap out of me.

Ask anyone on Social Security if their check comes on time every month. Like clockwork. And it comes through the so-called dilapidated U.S. mail. My dad's check literally will come on the same day every month. The government has been quite good and efficient at creating a number of systems.

Most Americans are very responsible.

I don't like to sit around whining about the corporate media, how they control everything, own everything. We already know that.

All art is about appealing to emotion.

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?

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.

Every fact in my films is true. And yet how often do I have to read over and over again about supposed falsehoods?

Clearly I am a person who suffers from a lack of ego.

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 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.

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.

I mean if politics was my main motivation I would be doing politics. But I'm a filmmaker.

There's a gullible side to the American people. They can be easily misled.

You can't debate satire. Either you get it or you don't.

In some states, you can vote a straight party ticket, but you can't vote for individual candidates.

The upper 1 percent, the people down on Wall Street, the corporate executives, they're the people that control this economy.

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.

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.

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.

As far as what I do love, I love birds; I love lavender.

Every night I watch the nightly news. It's funded by the pharmaceutical companies. Virtually every ad is a drug ad. They get their say every night on the nightly news through advertising.

New York City has become a place where it's not easy for the working class to even live.

Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a participatory event. If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy.

Sometimes it's important to vote - you know, to make a statement, to make a point; certainly, many of us who were involved in the Nader campaign in 2000 felt that way.

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.

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.'

A newspaper is a public trust, and we will suffer as a society without them. It is not the Internet that has killed them. It is their own greed, it is their own stupidity, and it is capitalism that has taken our daily newspapers from us.

'Champagne' and 'breathmint' are the first two words all Oscar winners hear.

One of the basic tenets of the working class is you want to get out of the working class.