I didn't have a lot of independent film connections. It really took until the digital film revolution came along that I realized that I could do it myself.

I went to graduate school at Harvard for one year I worked in the state legislature in Sacramento for one year. I taught school in Compton for two years.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?

I was a Political Science major.

I am one of those people who thrive on deadlines. Nothing brings on inspiration more readily than desperation.

To do then now would be retro. To do then then was very now-tro, if you will.

When Nixon died, on my radio show I started doing sketches with three basic conceits: One, there's a place called Heaven. Two, Nixon got in. And three, he's still taping.

The hardest work most of us do is maintaining the appearance of normality.

When it moved to Friday night it disappeared, when they find another show that can do what The Simpsons does, they will be delighted to do cancel The Simpsons.

Well I directed a few feature length things for HBO in the late eighties.

Nobody makes a movie thinking it's still going to be watched and talked about and quoted 20 years later.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

We live half our waking lives and all of our sleeping lives in some private, useless, and insensible waters we never mention or recall.

I like shopping from the comfort of my bed whilst my husband is asleep beside me.

The impulse of the journalist is to be novel, yet to relate his curiosities to the urgencies of the moment; the philosopher seeks what he conceives to be true, regardless of the moment.

You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. It helps you get up in the morning. It's a way of life. Without it, you're nobody.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

Many entire nations are marginalised by the more powerful nations. That is causing imbalance, violence and terror. Women must do their best to introduce another perspective.

To be a Christian is to believe we are commanded and authorised to say certain things to the world; to say things that will make disciples of all nations.

Politics enter dangerous ground, when people proclaim there are simple answers for our complex world.