Anyone will acknowledge that there's a lot of people other than those who are elected who run the government, and who are in permanent positions, and long-term positions, appointed positions - not voted in by anybody. That kind of gnaws away, I think, at the idea of democracy. The two-party system, again, is an issue. What we see is no desire on behalf of anyone to begin to address these problems.

Meeting Fidel Castro was really cool. It's cool because it's Fidel, and it's a world leader, and there's so much history behind the man and who he is in this hemisphere. And then at the end of the day, he's, I think, just like a big mayor. There's only, like, 11 million people in Cuba. He's a big mayor.

Perhaps it's time to start examining countries that have made democracy work while still having some kind of the same relationship in covenant with their population. Perhaps we need to look at the Scandinavian countries, or Canada, or something else, but whatever we have now, I think we just have to acknowledge, ain't workin.

I have to remind myself - I think the population of the United States has been subjected to the most sophisticated form of propaganda and mind control that any group of people has been exposed to in a very, very long time. It's difficult for people in this country to get any kind of factual information and to make intelligent decisions based on them.

I just feel like the country is guilty. I think we should be deeply ashamed for what we've done in Iraq, and we've gotta reconcile that, and we've gotta find some way to make peace with this, and we can't do that until we acknowledge what took place, and ultimately, I think that's the poison that is killing this administration. And I think there's a lot of people in the country who are guilty of allowing themselves to be duped in a very sloppy, sloppy manner.

I think revolution is always a little bit possible. I think it won't look or sound anything like what we would expect. But I think revolution is very difficult, and I'm not optimistic for any kind of dramatic change.

I just tell jokes, and I think a lot of people take it too seriously. It's not that I don't have things that I'm angry about in the world, and I think most decent human beings are upset about things, and even upset about things in their own country, but I'm not a particularly unhappy fellow.

I think that's always been part of the thinking behind the script, that - and I really tried really hard to impress that upon the staff of the show, the animation staff - to try to get them to understand that we would only be able to get away with what we were writing if the visuals were appealing enough that it was like a balance, and even people who didn't like what they were hearing would still not want to turn away because what they were seeing was so nice. So that was kind of my hunch, and I think it worked.

Fidel Castro just talked a long time, and he talked and he talked and he talked and he talked... and he talked during the meeting. I think it was about four hours. But I guess that's part of the Castro spirit.