I always remind people why The Oscars got started in 1928: It was an effort by the studios to suppress the unions. They started the Academy because all the screenwriters and directors and actors were unionizing, and they thought, "We'll have something that resembles a union, but that's completely controlled by the moneyed interests in Hollywood." That's what it's been all these years. It's something that reinforces Hollywood's image of itself. The Best Picture one year was Gandhi. Nobody watched Gandhi, but that's the kind of picture that always wins.

Almost every venerable tradition at a men's club starts out as a joke.

If you hate what you're seeing, you call it sex and violence. If you like it, you call it "romance and adventure."

As I've said many times, the single most oppressed class in America right now is the teenager.

I always remind people why The Oscars got started in 1928: It was an effort by the studios to suppress the unions. They started the Academy because all the screenwriters and directors and actors were unionizing, and they thought, "We'll have something that resembles a union, but that's completely controlled by the moneyed interests in Hollywood." That's what it's been all these years. It's something that reinforces Hollywood's image of itself. The Best Picture one year was Gandhi. Nobody watched Gandhi, but that's the kind of picture that always wins.

The Italians always made good wine, but you had the impression they were friendly guys in straw hats running family vineyards with slaves or something so that the vino was never more than ten bucks a bottle.

A universal draft is most often the instrument of Third World dictators.