Quotes About Controversy

On 'The X Factor,' they deliberately have people on that are awful just to laugh at them.

There are two factors in American politics that may seem strange to Europeans: race and religion.

Making a movie with Lindsay Lohan is not for the faint of heart.

I have no real enemies in comedy, but there are a couple of people who I'd laugh about if I heard that their legs had fallen off.

Political vitriol is a familiar enough characteristic of American history.

Are you familiar with 9/11? Building 7? You know what was in there? All the Enron stuff. I guess that building went down on its own.

If there are dominant teams, people enjoy discussing whether that's good or bad for the game, and if there aren't any dominant teams, then people enjoy discussing that.

The only team that could have competed with us was the Cubans. It's too bad they're boycotting. The teams we're playing just can't compete with our power.

Some people insist that hallowed professional teams should never change their nicknames.

Mobs in the street tearing down Ulysses S. Grant statues is a really chilling sight.

Tearing up a picture of the Pope comes under the heading of a Comedy Killer. It kind of breaks the spirit of the evening.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

I actually don't mind whether people can choose the sex of the baby - in fact humans have been trying to do it for 3,000 years. But there is a real issue about the safety of the technique.

Enhanced interrogation is not to be considered lightly, but the use of enhanced interrogation techniques does not require moral people to abandon their beliefs. Rather, it is precisely during these difficult times that one's beliefs about life, justice and mercy become indispensible.

When I hear music that parents hate, or older musicians hate, I know that's the new music. When I hear older people saying, 'I hate Rap or Techno' I rush to it.

The way you advance a technological society is to try things - to be controversial and contrarian in your thinking in order to get to something that eventually people say, 'I told you it was a great idea.'

I feel like great TED Talks are ones that are a little bit subject to interpretation, that do provoke further conversation - and potentially controversy.

Ted Cruz is the Schroedinger's cat of politicians. He is both eligible and not eligible to be president.

I'm not a fan of Ted Cruz at all.

I was roundly criticized for being in and around rock & roll music at its inception. It was the devil's music: it would make your teeth fall out and your hair turn blue, whatever the hell. You get through that.

I hate Gordon Ramsay's programmes: I don't know if he's been told it makes good television.

If I were racist, I wouldn't be so crazy as to declare it on television.

Why something in the public interest such as television news can be fought over, like a chain of hamburger stands, eludes me.

I'm not a lawyer, but I do know this: we need to protect our ability to tell controversial stories.