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" Watching somebody sing reveals a lot about character. "

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" In a weird way, our satirists probably have the most complicated, nuanced views of our politics now - Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver. I don't know what that says about our country. "

" By the rules of debate, if you lose your cool, you've lost the game. "

" How often do we make films just celebrating people that do a good job, work altruistically, and are in it just for the sake of the love and not the business? "

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" When you come from a place and an identity, you can feel constricted and have to get away. But then you realise how much a part of you it is. "

" I always tell aspiring documentary filmmakers, 'You have to go into it because you love it; if you go into it for the money, you're an idiot.' The number one prerequisite is you have to be intensely curious. If you love learning and trying to make people figure out what makes people tick, it's the best job in the world. "

" I feel like I'm in a privileged position where I get to meet people and talk to them about the most important things in their lives. I appreciate that trust they're putting in me. "

" If you're making a film about a band or a songwriter or whomever, there's a publisher, there's a record label, and there are people who are vested interests in that film. But with back-up singers, because they did stuff for everybody, there's no one party that has any vested interest in seeing the story told. "

" I think, in the West, we often discount the arts as nice but not that important. Certainly in America when we cut funding for schools, the arts are the first programs to go. But the arts built the things we need more than anything else: collaboration and co-operation and creativity. "

" I am a big believer in the power of journalism; it's a heroic pursuit. "

" So much of what we get on our news debate shows is really people spinning one way or the other, giving their talking points one way or the other. "

" The presidential and vice-presidential debates are those rare moments when people come together, but to even call them debates is a stretch because they're played by such negotiated rules, and they're so over-rehearsed. "

" I would argue that the culture is not the frosting on the cake: the culture is the plate the cake sits on. "

" The easiest way to subjugate a people is to erase a culture. I've seen it in war zones. "

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" In the late 1960s, English artists like the Rolling Stones and Joe Cocker began recording in the States, and at that point, they realised, 'We can get real African-American voices on our records; we don't have to pretend any more.' "

" Sometimes we have our perfect foils, or you can call them their bete noir: the person who brings out both the best and the worst in you because you disagree with them so completely. Yet, you understand and respect them enough to give it your all. "

" Harmony singing isn't meant to be done alone. "

" I so often doubt how much people on television believe what they're saying. They're playing roles for think tanks or political parties or shills of whatever stripe. "

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" At the beginning of the '70s, everything was possible. "

" Music, like film, is an incredible tool for creating empathy. "

" TV tends to laud the person with the perfect one-liner rather than the one with the better idea. "

" Success and singing is not synonymous. "

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" Everyone feels entitled to their own facts. "