What most of us must be involved in--whether we teach or write, make films, write films, direct films, play music, act, whatever we do--has to not only make people feel good and inspired and at one with other people around them, but also has to educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world.

Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.

The function of traditional history is to create a citizenry that looks to the top - the president, Congress, the Supreme Court - to make the important decisions. That's what traditional history is all about: the laws that were passed, the decisions made by the court. So much of history is built around "the great men." All of that is very anti-democratic.

[Nationalism is] a set of beliefs taught to each generation in which the Motherland or the Fatherland is an object of veneration and becomes a burning cause for which one becomes willing to kill the children of other Motherlands or Fatherlands.

Will Iraq be a democracy? The question is, 'Will America be a democracy?'

Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.

Use the Day of Atonement not to pray for the dead but to act for the living, to rescue those about to die.