“Politics is just show business for ugly people.”

“Gran was just being polite. Southern people are supposed to be polite and gracious. She's trying to show me how to be the same way.”

“Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.”

“If politics is like show business, then the idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether.”

“Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.”

“Maybe Cinderella was the bad guy in the story, and her stepsisters were just nerdy girls who wanted a boyfriend. How politically correct was it, really, to make the villains ugly? And how realistic? In my experience, it was usually the pretty people who were mean to the ugly ones, not the other way.”