“I wish more Americans would look north and see that there are some things we can learn from you, that we might be better off if we were more Canadian-like in some ways. Not the boring, dull stuff. But there’s something about your core, your values, the way you’re wired. You believe that you’re your brother’s keeper, that you have a responsibility, that you exist as part of a whole. If one of you gets sick, it means that if that’s not taken care of, then we all sort of suffer a bit. I think that’s pretty profound.”

“I’m continually inspired by a lot of things, a lot of people.”

“I hope that the average American will quit thinking that they’re going to achieve the ”˜American dream’, that they too will be rich someday. That’s just not going to happen. I would hope that people get involved—become active, join an organization, run for office themselves, any of a number of things. At the very least, quit participating in the system. Don’t buy shares of stock. Put your money in a credit union. Only use credit cards where you have to pay at the end of the month. Don’t put your pension in the stock market, for Christ’s sake. Things like that.”

“I don’t use the words ‘political activist,’ because I think it’s redundant. If I’m a citizen of a democracy, it means I’m automatically a political activist. I have to be. All of us have to be. If we’re not active, it ceases to be a democracy.”

“I go back over all these movies and things I’ve done where it feels like I’m beating my head against the wall, at some point I just get tired of it.”

“My job is to take a look at what’s going on and to make movies about it”