“So anarchical, iconoclast, overly-educated lunatics like myself — it never occurred to me to go work at an ad agency or Wall Street or anything that had to do with nine-to-five and accountability of that type.”

“I have a little bitty notebook in my pocket. I have slightly larger notebooks with spiral binding and then I have my computer. I keep 3 pens in my jacket pocket always — one black, one red, one blue.”

“I had a lot of advantages in life, in our elite institutions. But I have to say, having been in those elite insider places, I always felt a little bit like the outsider on the inside. I always felt like I was a little bit different.”

“Fui muy bendecido y privilegiado, y tuve maravillosas oportunidades. Fui a una gran prepa, fui a una gran universidad, tuve una gran educación. Tuve muchas ventajas en la vida, en nuestras instituciones de élite. Pero debo decir que, después de haber estado en esos lugares de élite, siempre me sentí un poco como un ajeno por dentro. Siempre sentí que era un poco diferente.”

“It's a great honor to become a member of the House of Lords. I think an even greater honor is that I'm a Knight of the Garter.”

“I am so tied to the Grand Canyon part of myself.”

“What I do for a living comes down to one thing. We could speak all day about every fancy term and delivery system and Spotify. It's about the song. It's about the song. It's about the song. And that's it.”

“In the beginning, you feel that the research is such an insurmountable mountain — you feel it’s such a Herculean or Sisyphean job…but you just have to get through it.”

“Sometimes I'll disagree with the smartest people I know. Are these acts of rebellion? I don’t know but it’s how I do things and I find that it works for me much of the time.”

“I view my future as being in Israel, and my children's future. And I view the future of the Jewish people here.”

“It bothers me that there's an unsolved problem and I latch on to two or three unsolved problems and I think about them all the time.”

“One needs to learn how to address that world because that's where it's going to be. And the physical, tangible this-ness of us is going to alter and I'm interested in that.”

“I'm in a weird position since I left, and it's a little maddening. People coming up saying, ‘Please run again, please run again,’ and I go, ‘Well, I'm keeping my options open.’ And that's what I say.’”

“I don't want to make my brand as a college dropout and then don't.”

“Something happened recently where comedians are taken way too seriously. I'm just trying to get a laugh.”

“I'm a Jewish woman who goes to the doctor, I assure you. I had a sister who died of breast cancer, the last thing I've ever told anyone, much less an AIDS patient, is that they shouldn't take their medicine.”

“I'm an American — that's what I do for a living — I tell our stories. Each film is essentially asking the same question: Who are we? Who are those strange and complicated people who like to call themselves Americans?”

“Look, my priority is my career. It's my public service, but I want to try to live as balanced a life as I can. I think it's better to start now than to start 10 years from now.”

“I'm a liberal, reform Jew from Duluth, Minnesota. Okay? I'm a cultural Jew. I'm not a religious Jew.”

“A hundred duck-sized Chris Christies, because I think vanquishing each of them would be so satisfying.”