I'm making a lot of money. I should be paying a lot more taxes. I'm not paying taxes at a rate that is even close to what people were paying under Eisenhower. Do people think America wasn't ascendant and wasn't an upwardly mobile society under Eisenhower in the '50s? Nobody was looking at the country then and thinking to themselves, "We're taxing ourselves into oblivion." Yet there isn't a politician with balls enough to tell that truth because the whole system has been muddied by the rich. It's been purchased.

Rural America's not coming back. That idea was lost with the Industrial Revolution.

Nobody reads anymore in America. Reading has become the least effective delivery system for narrative. That's sad because prose is the means by which you can deliver very complicated, nuanced explanations of problems and possible solutions.

From a spiritual perspective, freedom from attachment to a particular outcome is the ultimate expression of liberation. We can choose the actions we take, but we cannot control the consequences of our choices.

In the wake of Katrina, what you're witnessing and what we are very careful to depict is a form of patriotism.

Transitions are a part of life, allowing for perpetual renewal. When you experience the end of one chapter, allow yourself to feel the emotions of loss and rebirth. A bud gives way to a new flower, which surrenders to the fruit, which gives rise to a seed, which yields a new sprout. Even as you ride the roller coaster, embrace the centered internal reference of the ever-present witness.

We're now seeing levels of inequality raise their heads that we haven't seen since the age of the robber barons. If somebody watched The Deuce, and understood the allegory about capital and labor, and understands what happens when one side is vulnerable to the other, that would be swell.