Do you know why it is that when a rancher fucks a sheep he does it at the edge of a cliff? It’s so the sheep will push back. - George Carlin

The world is really a big straight line. Sometimes the world is actually a punchline. There are things that happen and you'll say, 'I can't believe that. Can you believe that?' And for that reason you don't have to tilt your head because the world at that time is coming at you at a forty-five degree angle, so they're out of wack. But most of the world appears to be straight and level, so you've got to tilt your head forty-five degrees and your vision becomes: how can I take that reality and just distort it enough to suit my purposes? To show them the craziness is there but it's just well-disguised.

They say if you scratch a cynic, you'll find a disappointed idealist. And I would admit, that somewhere underneath all this there's a little flicker of a flame of idealism that would love to see it all — huish! — change. But it can't happen that way. And incremental change — it just seems the pile of shit is too deep.

What are we going to tell the Intergalactic Council of Ministers the first time one of our teenage mothers threw her newborn baby into a dumpster, huh? How're we gonna explain that to the space people? How are we gonna let them know that our ambassador was only late for the meeting because his breakfast was cold and he had to spend half an hour punching his wife around the kitchen? What are they gonna think when they find out that it's just a local custom that over 80 million women in the Third World have had their clitorises forcibly removed in order to reduce their sexual pleasures so they won't cheat on their husbands? Can't you just sense how eager the rest of the universe is for us to show up? Can't you see them out there?