Michael Moore Quotes

I've always felt so grateful that I dropped out of school, that I never had to do a thesis. I wouldn't know how to organise and structure myself to film so that B follows A and C follows B.

I don't agree with the copyright laws and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they're not doing it to make a profit off my labor. You share things with people and I think information, and art, and ideas should be shared.

When I make a film, I'm not doing it purely for political reasons. If I just wanted to do that, I'd run for office.

When you come from the working class and you do well enough whereby you can provide a little bit better for your family, get a decent roof over their head and send them to a good school, that's considered a good thing.

Most people don't see themselves as Democrats or Republicans. They see themselves as Americans.

For a documentary filmmaker, I do very well.

You survive by having your fear compass calibrated correctly. Our compass is off now because we're being told to be afraid of everything. The things that we're frightened of, or told to be frightened of, are not necessarily the things that we need to fear.

The products built in the factories of G.M., Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps.

The health insurance industry does not like to pay out claims, because they don't make money. The only way they can make a profit is if they don't pay for your operation. If they pay for your operation and your doctor's appointment and your pharmaceuticals, they don't make any money.

I have enormous respect for anyone who would offer to sacrifice their life to defend my right to live. Is there any greater gift one can give another?

We all need to be huge supporters of the theatrical documentary.

Capitalism would have never let me be a filmmaker, living in Flint, Michigan with a high school education. I was going to have to make that happen myself.

400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined.

As the country continues to dissect the recent natural disaster, we might want to start considering what about the disaster wasn't actually 'natural' at all. ... Human activity, the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global warming. Global warming is causing the oceans to warm. Warm oceans are steroids for storms.

There should be no private health insurance companies operating for profit.

The American media wants to pump you full of fear.

I think there are few things more patriotic than taking the time to make your country a better place.

A majority of this country opposes this war, a majority of this country never voted for this administration.

If your bank took bailout money, take your money out of that bank and put it in a credit union. Credit unions are owned by the people who have their money in the credit union.

I'm used to my films having little effect on making the world a better place.

Capitalism means that a few people will do very well, and the rest will serve the few.

How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?

Television has its own award. It's called the Emmy. It's a good award. I like it. I have one. But you don't see movies like 'The King's Speech' win Oscars and then go to TV and qualify for Emmys. In documentaries, some networks have been able to game the system.

If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy. So Obama will rise or fall based not so much on what he does but on what we do to support him.

My employees, there's no deductible in your health care. No deductible, absolutely not. You get paid sick days, as many as you need, personal days.

I mean if politics was my main motivation I would be doing politics. But I'm a filmmaker.

The movie theater is never going away. If that was a case why are there still restaurants? People still have kitchens in their home!

I don't compromise my values and I don't compromise my work. That's why I've been kicked from one network to the next: I won't give in.

I like BuzzFeed, and I understand the pressure that online reporters are under. But I think everyone agrees that, despite all the awesome kitten gifs, they're still obligated to be skeptical of government officials and ask the right questions.

We should be licensing everybody with a gun. I have to have a license for my dog. I have to have a license for my car. If you’re going to do my hair later you have to have a license ... We don’t require a license to own a firearm?

You know he's [George W. Bush] there illegally. You know he was not elected either by the popular vote or by the vote in Florida.

Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair. In a nation that was founded on genocide and then built on the backs of slaves, it was an unexpected moment, shocking in its simplicity: Barack Obama, a good man, a black man, said he would bring change to Washington, and the majority of the country liked that idea.

The media love to cover black people on the front page. After all, when you live in a society that will lock up about 30 percent of all black men at some time in their lives and send more of them to prison than to college, chances are a fair number of those black faces will end up in the newspaper.

The 'fiscal cliff' is a ruse, an invention by the right and the rich, to try and keep their huge tax breaks.

I - honestly, I don't know of a worse lie one could tell other than a lie to take a country to war. To make up things to take people to war. That's just got to be the most obscene, immoral thing to do.

A lot of political people, especially people on the left, have forgotten the importance of humor as an incredible weapon, and a vehicle through which to affect change.

I don't 'support the troops' or any of those other hollow and hypocritical platitudes uttered by Republicans and frightened Democrats. Here's what I do support: I support them coming home. I support them being treated well.

I realized that this was the big secret of democracy -- that change can occur by starting off with just a few people doing something.

By the end of the millenium five men controlled the world's media. And the people rejoiced, because their TVs told them to.

People like me who grew up in a working-class town, who don't have a college education, you don't usually hear from us.

Back in the '80s and '90s, when GM was consistently posting giant profits, they were simultaneously firing tens of thousands of workers in my hometown of Flint and across Michigan.

I believe that when you provide information to people, they become less fearful and they will engage more in their democracy if they are empowered with information.

There Is No Terrorist Threat In This Country. This Is A Lie. This Is The Biggest Lie We've Been Told.

Openness, transparency - these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt... and that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done.

They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet... We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing.

One day there'll be no need for me. I'm actually hoping to put myself out of business.

We like nonfiction, and we live in fictitious times.

I had an unusually large-sized head, though this was not uncommon for a baby in the Midwest. The craniums in our part of the country were designed to leave a little extra room for the brain to grow in case one day we found ourselves exposed to something we didn't understand, like a foreign language, or a salad.