I just want real reactions. I want people to laugh from the gut, be sad from the gut – or get angry from the gut.

I think I have a dark view of the world. I have to make everything funny, otherwise it all seems so sad.

It is sad that the Republican leadership is not as interested as they say they are in protecting the institution of marriage as they are in waging a campaign to divide and distract the American people from the real issues that need to be addressed.

The sad fact is that the same terrorist scenarios, if they occurred in five different States, there could be five different sets of responses to the American people. We need, at a minimum, a level of coordination on communicating threats to the public.

It’s so sad: anything that has to do with God, people want to dispel.

Art is the most beautiful deception of all. And although people try to incorporate the everyday events of life in it, we must hope that it will remain a deception lest it become a utilitarian thing, sad as a factory.

So war is an extremely sad business, because the majority of people don’t want to be in it.

Sad old blokes, I’m told, now dream of me with a whip in hand.

If you have ever been in a real tragic or sad situation, the words that come out are hopelessly inadequate and kind of cliched.