The one thing for sure is, I don't ever want to waste a movie. I don't ever want to waste effort.

The easiest time to be funny is during a fairly serious situation. That way you can break the ice.

Nothing is funnier than confidently doing the wrong thing.

The only way that Hollywood ever skews toward liberal is because part of what we make out of Hollywood involves writers, actors, directors, musicians, set designers, and photographers. In general, people like that are going to be more progressive, more open minded, a little more altruistic.

If you make action movies, the critics will savage you, and then your movies are outdated the following week with the new wave of special effects.

I don't want to speak for my movies; you could say my movies are just completely silly and dumb, but in the case of 'Idiocracy' and 'Borat,' without a doubt there is a really subversive and sophisticated assault on American culture. It's one thing to mess stuff up and break stuff, but [Borat] is really pointing out the ideology of America. It's one thing to break stuff and damage people's possessions, but when you start aiming at the ideology of America, that's dangerous comedy.

We're always looking for the backbone, the central idea, and once you have that you know everything can circle around it.