“The U.S. is an optimistic nation. No candidate has ever won the Americ...” — Cass Sunstein Quote

The U.S. is an optimistic nation. No candidate has ever won the American presidency by speaking primarily to people's deepest fears and by manufacturing a sense of apocalypse - that our leaders 'can't do anything right,' that things are utterly falling apart.

The 'cash for clunkers' program was a big success in part because it gave people the sense that the economy was moving.

When government programs aren't working, those on the Left tend to support more funding, while those on the Right want to scrap them altogether. It is better to ask whether the problem is complexity and poor design. We can solve those problems - sometimes without spending a penny.

If you look at a great city, one of its amazing features is that you're going to find all sorts of things that you might not specifically have chosen in advance. And they will change your day. Maybe your month. Maybe your whole life.

We started at once to dig our trenches, half of my platoon stepping forward abreast, the men being placed an arm's length apart. After laying their rifles down, barrels pointing to the enemy, a line was drawn behind the row of rifles and parallel to it.

I think that I could have been take apart if the bear market continued, but I waited three years before I felt the bear market was over and I was right.

Apart from 'Stoned,' I can't think of a film that's made me think, 'Blimey, that should have been at Cannes.'

I did 'Lone Star Love' in 2007 with Randy Quaid, and that was supposed to come to Broadway at the Belasco and a marquee went up and everything... and it all fell apart, and that marquee came right down, and we got severance pay. And, it was very sad.