Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It's very hard to feel the difficulties that the military goes through. It's very hard to feel the difficulties of military families, unless you're in that environment. And sometimes you have to force yourself to try and put yourself in other people's sort of shoes and environment to get the sense of that.
The trial of Enron chiefs Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay began four-and-a-half years after perpetrating -- allegedly -- the fraud that led to the second largest bankruptcy in American history. Why four-and-a-half years? Because apparently it's harder to bring Ken Lay to trial than it is to invade two countries.
If the president is the head of the American body politic, Congress is its gastrointestinal tract. Its vast and convoluted inner workings may be mysterious and unpleasant, but in the end they excrete a great deal of material whose successful passage is crucial to our nation's survival. This is Congress's duty.
You feel kind of weird cheering for chaos. There is that sense that the crazier it gets, the better off we are. Before, when I was part of the American public, I was hoping for a reasonable and quick solution to the impeachment process. Now, I'm hoping for partisan bedlam and chaos. It's really what serves me best.
Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters and these policemen and people from all over the country, literally with buckets, rebuilding... that's extraordinary. And that's why we have already won... they can't... it's light. It's democracy. They can't shut that down.
Nobody cares that Mitt Romney is rich. It’s Romney’s inability to understand the institutional advantage that he gains from the government’s tax code largesse that’s a little offensive to people. Especially considering Romney’s view on anyone else who looks to the government for things like, I don’t know, food and medicine.
[When you have kids] you become much more - there are two things that happen. You recognize how fragile individuals are, and you recognize the strength of the general overall group, but you don't care anymore. You're just fighting for the one thing. See and then, you also recognize that everybody, then, is also somebody's child.
Michael Brown, the director of FEMA, was nominated by President Bush in 2003 and plans to start the job any day now. ... Prior to heading FEMA, Brown spent the 90's as a commissioner -- this is true -- of the International Arabian Horse Association. I guess he stands out because most Bush appointees are beholden to Arabian people.
If you want, you can try and get a broader perspective, or you can find people who are absolutely out of their minds, or find people that are doing incredibly complex and interesting and urgent journalism. And the same goes for our show. It's a prism into people's own ideologies, when they watch our program. This is just our take.
I'm less upset with politicians than the media. I feel like politicians, there is a certain, inherent - you know, the way I always explain it is, when you go to the zoo and a monkey throws its feces, it's a monkey. But, when the zookeeper is standing right there, and he doesn't say bad monkey... Somebody's got to be the zookeeper.
Really, an historic night last night. You may have heard, Barack Obama will be the first black president of the United States of America. ... Obama is also the first Democrat to receive more than 50 percent of the vote since Jimmy Carter, the first senator to be elected since Jack Kennedy, the first Muslim to be ... I said too much.
The real challenge is when I'm at work, I'm at work. I'm locked in, I'm ready to go, I'm focused. When I'm at home, I'm locked in and I'm ready to go and I'm focused on home. We don't watch the show. We don't watch the news. We don't do any of that stuff. I sit down, I play Barbies. And sometimes the kids will come home and play with me.
For me it was just exciting to see fake news catching on like that. We don't you know, it's interesting. I think we don't make things up. We just distill it to, hopefully, its most humorous nugget. And in that sense it seems faked and skewed just because we don't have to be subjective or pretend to be objective. We can just put it out there.
Yes, the long war on Christianity. I pray that one day we may live in an America where Christians can worship freely! In broad daylight! Openly wearing the symbols of their religion... perhaps around their necks? And maybe -- dare I dream it? -- maybe one day there can be an openly Christian President. Or, perhaps, 43 of them. Consecutively.
While opponents label (Howard) Dean a throwback liberal, The New York Times recently noted that as governor, Dean cut income taxes, reformed welfare and balanced Vermont's budget - all traditionally conservative policies. Dean also received an 'A' rating from the National Rifle Association, which I think you can't get unless you've killed a guy.
Condoleezza Rice was confirmed by a vote of 85, 13, despite a contentious but futile protest vote by democrats. By the way, for a fun second term drinking game, chug a beer every time you hear the phrase 'contentious but futile protest vote by democrats.' By the time Jeb Bush is elected, you'll be so wasted you won't even notice the war in Syria.
When Henry Hill [in Goodfellas] got arrested for the first time and Robert DeNiro met him at the courthouse and Henry Hill was really upset, 'cause he thought Robert DeNiro would be really mad at him. And DeNiro comes up to him and he gives him a $100 and he goes, "You got pinched. We all get pinched, but you did it right, you didn't say nothing."
You may be asking yourself, 'Am I the right type of person to go to this rally?' The fact that you would even stop to ask yourself that question, as opposed to, let's say, just jumping up, grabbing the nearest stack of burnable holy books, strapping on a diaper and pointing your car towards D.C. -- that means I think you just might be right for it.
You think that sense of humor goes as far as our ideology. I think that ultimately, we have we have very interesting reactions on our show. People are constantly saying, "I love your-your show is so funny, until you made a joke about global warming, which is a serious issue, and I can't believe you did that. And I am never watching your show again."
People always say, when did you realize you were funny? And I think it's not that you realize you were funny. It's that you're brain works in a certain way. And I don't think that that's - I think in some respects it's uncontrollable, and you can either accept it and deal with it and hone it or you can try to fight it. And I was too weak to fight it.
The goals for me have changed somewhat. There's a bit of seduction to the idea of being on network, but it got to the point where that wasn't important. What's important is doing something worthwhile. Which is why I've always avoided being on a sitcom. Yeah, it's high-profile and it's on a network, but you know what? You could be on Suddenly Stewart.
The frustration of our [The Daily] show is- very much outside any parameters of the media or the government. We don't have access to these people, we don't have access. We don't go to dinners we don't have cocktail parties. We don't you know, you've seen what happens when one of us ends up at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, it doesn't end well.
I reject the idea there are just two sides. I think that with the amount of ideas and thoughts there are, it's not even going to be consistent with the same person. People can hold liberal and conservative dogma points at the same time. They're not living their lives via platforms. They're living their lives. The whole thing is an awfully tired construct.
People would like to place a standard on our show that doesn't exist. We're not set up for reporting; we don't have an apparatus for that. We're discussing things that hopefully people might get something out of, but it's wildly inconsistent. Just because we hit on points that resonate, or people think are real complaints - that doesn't make us journalists.
Analysis of President Bush's tax plan has revealed that several elaborate tricks and gimmicks were used to make it look like a $1.35 trillion cut, but in reality it's going to be closer to costing $1.8 trillion. Critics claim it's math so fuzzy, you have to squint to see our nation's future of subsistence farming and post-apocalyptic roving motorcycle gangs.
Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats or Republicans or conservatives or liberals. Most Americans live their lives that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often it's something they do not want to do, but they do it. Impossible things get done every day that are only made possible by the little, reasonable compromises.
The view... from my apartment... was the World Trade Center... and now it's gone, they attacked it. This symbol of American ingenuity, and strength, and labor, and imagination and commerce, and it is gone. But you know what? You know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the South of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty. You can't beat that!
The building housing America's military brass is a five-sided pentagon, but somehow, the people in it still manage to make it the squarest place on earth. The latest evidence? A current military document that lists homosexuality as a mental disorder in the same league as mental retardation - noting, of course, the one difference: retarded people can still get into heaven.
Fox opposes a Syria peace plan because its modus operandi is to foment dissent in the form of a relentless and irrational contrarianism to Barack Obama and all things Democratic, to advance its ultimate objective of creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose fear, anger, mistrust, and discontent is the manna upon which it sustains its parasitic succubus-like existence.
Orthodox Jews, or, as they are known in the Talmud, the Really Chosen Ones, are committed to the idea that the entire Torah was dictated by God verbatim to Moses at Mount Sinai... Other forms of Judaism dispute this claim, although it does explain certain passages in the first Torah, such as, I'm sorry, am I boring you? and What do you like better, Moses, Lord Almighty or Big Hoohah?
I think you are looking at sexuality and not attributes, and I think it's odd because the conservative mantra is a meritocracy. And I think what you're suggesting is the fact that being gay parents makes you not as good as others. And I would suggest that a loving, gay family with a financially secure background beats the hell out of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline any day of the week.
If someone was to introduce hope and idealism into our political system, I think the tension that would create in other areas would certainly be ripe. You would think that if you bring oxygen to the organism, the organism lives. But there may be other organisms in there that thrive in darkness and in a more anaerobic environment. Watching those creatures writhe will always be interesting.
You can have all the muskets you want! You can even have assault muskets!...Their (the NRA's) paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present. We can't even begin to address 30,000 gun deaths that are actually, in reality, happening in this country every year because a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of an imaginary Hitler.
The (Supreme Court) ruling that anyone who's arrested -- even accidentally -- can be strip-searched was decided five to four, with the votes for the searches coming from the Court's five conservatives. You know -- the 'defending personal liberty' guys. Which is weird because I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I'm willing to bet Big Government feels it's biggest when it's inside your anus.
The thing that [the Senate and the House] don't realize is that everyone wants them to come from beyond that contradiction so that we can all fix it. Nobody is saying, "We don't have a problem." Nobody is saying that, "9/11 didn't happen." What they're saying is, "We're not a fragile country, trust us to have this conversation, so that we can do this in the right way, in a more effective way."
In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America. Now, some have argued Columbus actually discovered the West Indies, or that Norsemen had discovered America centuries earlier, or that you really can't get credit for discovering a land already populated by indigenous people with a developed civilization. Those people are communists. Columbus discovered America.
I have to say, as someone who is not a Christian, it’s hard for me to believe Christians are a persecuted people in America. God willing, maybe one of you one day will even rise up and get to be president of this country — or maybe forty-four in a row. But that’s my point, is they’ve taken this idea of no establishment as persecution, because they feel entitled, not to equal status, but to greater status.
President Bush announced his new economic plan. The centerpiece was a proposed repeal of the dividend tax on stocks, a boon that could be worth millions of dollars to average Americans. Well, average stock-owning Americans. Technically, Americans who own a significant amount of shares in dividend-dealing companies. Well, rich people, that's what I'm trying to say. They're going to do really well with this.
North Korea is making several demands in exchange for giving up their nuclear program, including a promise from America not to attack them. Which is a little strange because for us to attack them we would have to have slam dunk proof that they have weapons of mass destruction. I mean, for Gods sakes people, we're not maniacs. It would have to be an air-tight case. We wouldn't just come in there and start bombing you.
All in all it's a pretty great day for major league sports. At long last they've decided that gay people are fit to be included in their elite club-one that's already allowed in adulterers, wife-swappers, gamblers, cheaters, rapists, racists and slaughterers of man. Those who've abused spouses, drugs, alcohol, family members and animals. Congratulations, gay athletes. Are you sure you want to hang out with these people?
On a more personal note we in this country we have a very tragic situation occur at one of our universities and, it really has taken the country aback and there's a real grieving process that we're going through, And going through it mourning and learning about the victims and-learning about it and showing our support, you know, I hesitate to say, how does your country handle what is that type of carnage on a daily basis?
If I was to really get at the burr in my saddle, it's not politics - and this is, I think, probably a horrible analogy - but I look at politicians as they are doing what inherently they need to do to retain power. Their job is to consolidate power. When you go to the zoo and you see a monkey throwing poop, you go, 'That's what monkeys do, what are you gonna do?' But what I wish the media would do more frequently is say, 'Bad monkey.'
Robert Torricelli, a powerful fund-raiser who helped raise more than $100 million for the Democratic party, took inappropriate gifts from a businessman, including an $8,000 gold Rolex watch, for which he was severely admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee in July. To recap: raising $100 million in contributions from gigantic corporations - ethical; taking a watch - unethical. That's the Senate Ethics Committee, an oxymoron since 1974.
My life was typical. I played a little Little League baseball. I never wanted for food. I always had shoes. I had a room. There were no great tragedies. There were the typical ups and downs but I wouldn' t say it was at all sad. We were Jewish and living in the suburbs so there was a slightly neurotic bent to it, but I can't point to anything where a boy overcame a tragedy to become a comedian. As my grandmother used to say, 'I can't complain.
Trent Lott has regained a position of leadership. He was the former majority leader who lost his post for racially insensitive commentary. I believe he mentioned that Strom Thurmond in 1948, who ran as a segregationist candidate, should have won. ... But now, sound the irony alarm. He has recaptured a position and his position -- I kid you not -- in the Senate will be minority whip. So, my guess is he takes to that job like, let's say, white on rice.
In my head, thought, I would love to do an interview where it's just sort of de-constructed - the talking points of Iraq - sort of the idea of, is this really the conversation we're having about this war? That if we don't defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, they'll follow us home? That to support the troops means not to question that the surge could work. That, what we're really seeing in Iraq is not a terrible war, but in fact, just the media's portrayal of it.
The country's 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything we hear nothing.
After a long investigation the SEC has fined Halliburton $7.5 million for issuing fraudulent statements exaggerating their profits in 1998 and 1999 during which their CEO was - oh who was it? Oh that's right. ... Cheney himself has not been implicated in the scandal and according to Cheney's lawyer there is no allegation whatsoever that he acted in any way other than in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. And you know what? It's still true today.
Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge made that critical leap from 'be afraid' to 'be very afraid,' raising the terrorist threat level to orange for financial sectors in New York, Washington, D.C., and northern New Jersey. ... Ridge's announcement comes amidst reports he will step down as head of homeland security after the election. Ridge himself has refused to comment on the story, though colleagues say he has often expressed a desire to spend more time at home, scaring his family.
Even if the flag burning amendment does become law, the larger problem will remain of how to respectfully dispose of older, tattered flags. Well, fortunately the U.S. official Flag Code has a suggestion about this. "The flag, when it is in such a condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem of display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning." Owwwwcchh. In response, the House Republicans are calling for tattered flags to be kept alive via a feeding tube.