The Sophists had this idea: Forget this idea of what's true or not—what you want to do is rhetoric; you want to be able to persuade the audience and have the audience think you're smart and cool. And Socrates and Plato, basically their whole idea is, "Bullshit. There is such a thing as truth, and it's not all just how to say what you say so that you get a good job or get laid, or whatever it is people think they want.

To make someone an icon is to make him an abstraction, and abstractions are incapable of vital communication with living people.

I think TV promulgates the idea that good art is just art which makes people like and depend on the vehicle that brings them the art.

Look, man, we'd probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is?

We will, of course, without hesitation use art to parody, ridicule, debunk, or criticize ideologies.

Dostoevski informs everybody; or he ought to.

It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.