Gerard Butler Quotes

I don't think you can ever be ahead of your time with cynicism about that subject. No, I don't think it was ahead of its time. I think it was very much a product of its time.

We live in a world of crisis, of challenge, and... it's in our galleries that we can unpack the civilizations that we're seeing the current manifestations of.

If you're living in your time, you cannot help but to write about the things that are important.

I think in part the reason is that seeing an economy that is, in many ways, quite different from the one grows up in, helps crystallize issues: in one's own environment, one takes too much for granted, without asking why things are the way they are.

'Eureka' was very bad timing. The early 1980s: Reagan and Thatcher were in, greed was good, and here was a film about the richest man in the world who still couldn't be happy. Politically and sociologically, it was out of step.

When the Soviet Union fell, optimistic scholars believed the world had shifted inexorably in the direction of free markets and liberal democracy. Instead, the West gradually embraced bigger government and weaker social bonds, creating a fragmented society in which the only thing we all belong to, as President Barack Obama puts it, is the state.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.

There wasn't so many ISSUES like there are today. It was a simpler time.

A theatre, a literature, an artistic expression that does not speak for its own time has no relevance.

If you look through the century, certain things have gotten better and certain things have gotten worse. I wouldn't say overall that things have gotten better. I think you could say things have gotten worse, but I don't think you could say that things have gotten better. Overall. You can't say that.

Class is often invisible in America in the movies, and usually not the subject of the film.

To show that a comedian on stage in India talking about sanitation or in South Africa talking about HIV and AIDS awareness, if you follow the joke into their lives, you can see that, like, oh, these things aren't just contrived in joke books. This is real life. I think the best comedians have that bravery and courage to say, Oh, this is what it is.

The American agenda is sweeping everything before it, and although it's not perfect, the EU is better on environmental issues. It's a less rapacious form of capitalism.

There are grave misgivings that the discussion on ecology may be designed to distract attention from the problems of war and poverty.

By isolating the issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, climate change, environment, governance, economics, catastrophe and whatever other problems the present embodies or the future may bring, science fiction can do what Dickens and Sinclair did: make real the consequences of social injustice or human folly.

Without comprehending the role of identity, many issues we all face will remain unresolved.

With 'Downsizing,' a lot of the discussion hasn't been about the film itself, but about cultural and political conversations happening outside of it. It's being digested in the context of the time.

It's extremely important that plays reflect contemporary times and should not just be about asking for social change without having any connect with the audience.

I am a social realist writer.

It is not possible to have a strong, functioning business in a world of increasing inequality, poverty, and climate change.

Like comedy, horror has an ability to provoke thought and further the conversation on real social issues in a very powerful way.

Culturally, I think 'All in the Family' was universal enough to have good timing at any time.

Woe to these people who have no appetite for the very dish that their age serves up.

That the young rich smell the stink of the poor and learn to find it a bit amusing. They had to laugh, otherwise it would be too terrifying.

If the global economy is unresponsive to people who feel left behind, if inequality continues to grow, then we could end up seeing more and more of these divisions arise throughout advanced economies around the world.