Right now, huge numbers of people cannot obtain even drinking water, and the situation is likely to become worse with predicted climate change and failure to take the actions that are necessary.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time, in others' minds.

Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.

The economy is most important. It is off track.

For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art.

I don't talk about my salary.

Government is supposed to be about how we do things together, and we can do that much more together if we use technology smartly right now.

The difference between me and you is... that I don't mind what happens.

All thinking begins with wondering

The best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.