I remember the first time I received a cassette tape of a band called The Clash. I became an instant fan of the Clash and then bought their albums after that and went to their concerts and gave them my money... but I first got it for free.

We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.

We have to see that we're a part of each other, and we have to take care of each other. The reason why they have universal health care in Canada and Britain, these other places? Because they believe if one suffers, everybody suffers.

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.

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

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?

Under Reagan came the idea of putting your pension plan in the stock market, which wasn't a guaranteed pension.

I believe that when you provide information to people, they become less fearful and they will engage more in their democracy if they are empowered with information.

The motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started the war with Iraq in order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do business in other countries. They intend to use cheap labor in those countries, which will make Americans rich.

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

I don't believe that the Bush Administration had something to do with September 11th. I do believe that there were a lot of warning signals, but I don't think they were ignored on purpose - Bush just wanted to go to the ranch for a month.

Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.

Openness, transparency - these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt... and that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done.

L.A. - talk about a cruel city: Patients are forcibly removed from hospitals.

They said VCRs would kill the movies; it didn't.

A sane person would think that Wal-Mart would never carry 'Capitalism: A Love Story' because it's simply not in their best interests to inform their customers of their shady past.

I think the NRA, they got it half-right when they say, 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' I change it to, 'Guns don't kill people, Americans kill people.'

We should be licensing everybody with a gun. I have to have a license for my dog. I have to have a license for my car. If you're going to do my hair later you have to have a license... We don't require a license to own a firearm?

Oprah's got good politics, she's got a good heart, and she'll have us all up Jazzercising at six in the morning. This cannot be a bad thing, and reading a book while we're Jazzercising. So America would be better off if Oprah were president.

Three of the top six documentaries of all time, grossing, are made by me.

There's a gullible side to the American people. They can be easily misled. Religion is the best device used to mislead them.

This life is a gift, and to reject that gift or abuse that gift is not human and not worthy of us.

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?'

I'm not a proselytizer. I was raised Catholic. I am a Catholic.

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.

Republicans are relentless and they're smart, too - they're not all dumb - and on Election Day, they'll be up at five in the morning.

I was taught from a very early age that it was probably the most American thing you can do is to question what's going on and to try to fix things that you see that aren't right. I believed that as a young person, and I believe that today.

Nobody was talking about healthcare until 'Sicko' came out.

I had a newspaper in Flint, Michigan called the 'Flint Voice,' and so it was a, you know, underground, alternative newspaper that I edited and put out for about ten years.

The money to fund great things and innovations and programs is gone in our lifetime; it's all gone to debt. So we won't be able to solve global warming or have the transportation that we needed for the 21st century. We should be supporting people with great ideas, but it's gone, and now it's gotta be paid back with interest to banks in China.

If your bank took bailout money, take your money out of that bank and put it in a credit union. Credit unions are owned by the people who have their money in the credit union.

I was one of the first 18-year-olds in the United States elected to public office right after 18-year-olds got the right to vote back in the early '70s. I ran for the Board of Education.

It turns out Cuba has this incredible healthcare system for a very poor country.

A lot of people on Capitol Hill don't want to talk to me.

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

If we didn't have Social Security, our seniors would live mostly in poverty. You'd have another 18 million people in poverty.

I did not like 'The Hurt Locker.' It's a lazy way to make a movie, frankly. I could put you on the edge of your seat quite easily, and have you feel the tension for 2 hours, if every other scene practically is, 'Should we cut the red wire or the green wire?'

We all need to be huge supporters of the theatrical documentary.

Yeah, I think of what I do as a work of journalism. It's more like the op-ed page, though. These are my opinions. My point of view. The opinions are mine and I let you make up your own mind.

Capitalism is against the things that we say we believe in - democracy, freedom of choice, fairness. It's not about any of those things now. It's about protecting the wealthy and legalizing greed.

I'd feel bad if I had you come into a theater and you leave feeling ripped off.

I ask all Americans with a conscience to shun anything and everything to do with the murderous state of Georgia.

It really is disgusting when a guy in a ball cap with a high school education is the one asking the tough questions.

Nobody has been arrested on Wall Street for the crash of 2008. They're not paying their fair share of the taxes. And now with the Citizens United case of the Supreme Court, they get to buy politicians up out in the open.

We live in a time when fictitious election results elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.

I assume everything I'm saying in an email or saying on the telephone is being looked at.

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.

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.

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

This book, 'Stupid White Men,' has sold now over four million copies worldwide. Probably about half of that may be in the U.S. and Canada, and the rest, overseas.