Many of us, and most of us from time to time, try to escape a blunt fact which may not tally with our self-image. When we are depressed, we re-create… - David Mamet

"We long ago ceased expecting that a President speak his own words. We no longer expect him actually to know the answers to questions put to him. We have, in effect, come to elect newscasters-and by a similar process: not for their probity or for their intelligence, but for their "believability."

"Hope" is a very different exhortation than, for example, save, work, cooperate, sacrifice, think. It means: "Hope for the best, in a process over which you have no control." For, if one had control, if one could endorse a candidate with actual, rational programs, such a candidate demonstrably possessed of character and ability sufficient to offer reasonable chance of carrying these programs out, we might require patience or understanding, but why would we need hope?

We have seen the triumph of advertising's bluntest and most ancient tool, the unquantifiable assertion: "New" in what way? "Improved" how? "Better" than what? "Change" what in particular? "Hope" for what?

These words, seemingly of broad but actually of no particular meaning, are comforting in a way similar to the self-crafted wedding ceremony.

Whether or not a spouse is "respecting the other's space," is a matter of debate; whether or not he is being unfaithful is a matter of discernible fact. The author of his own marriage vows is like the supporter of the subjective assertion. He is voting for codependence. He neither makes nor requires an actual commitment. He'd simply like to "hope.

You cheated on your wife? You did it, live with it. You fuck little girls, so be it. There's an absolute morality? May be. And then what?

"When you come into the theater, you have to be willing to say, "We're all here to undergo a communion, to find out what is going on in this world." If you're not willing to say that, what you get is entertainment instead of art, and poor entertainment at that."