I think that what most surprises anybody who goes into politics from even a modestly cerebral background is the vulgarity of much of the cut and thrust of politics.
What do you want to be a sailor for? There are greater storms in politics than you will ever find at sea. Piracy, broadsides, blood on the decks. You will find them all in politics.
'Yes' is a far more potent word than 'no' in American politics. By adopting the positions which animate the political agenda for the other side, one can disarm them and leave them sputtering with nothing to say.
The accession to power in Pyongyang of Kim Jong Un, son of Kim Jong Il and grandson of Kim Il Sung, is a unique achievement in world politics.
No. I probably do better not being in politics. They have too much control over you when you are in politics.
I get asked a lot about getting into politics. I say, 'Take a look at politics. You tell me what seems appealing about that.'
I certainly wasn't a fan of Thatcher's politics. People liked to label us as children of Thatcher. What nonsense. The real children of Thatcher came in the 1990s, and had no interest in politics. The Oasis, Britpop scene.
Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.
We must remember that politics is more than a power game. The core of politics in my view is to serve our citizens, to serve our fellow human beings.
We're also far enough from the publishing power that we have no access to the politics of publishing, although there are interpersonal politics, of course.
If you really want to diminish a candidate, depict him as the foil of his handler. This is as old in American politics as politics itself. It's easy to point at me. I'm convenient.
I deliberately did not read anything about the Vietnam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was.
You have a political and media elite who have an idiom by which they describe politics. It's highly, highly polarised. It's right, left, red, blue, up, down, victorious, crushed.
Compared to politics, I think sports is funnier, because it's inconsequential. And politics can be real important and all that. The more pointless something is, the funnier it is, you know?
Politics is so personal, vicious and immediate, how are you going to get anything done? Even the local politics where I live have gotten so ugly.
I don't consider myself specifically political, you know? I think of working as an actor as being a human thing. The concerns I have that fall into politics are human concerns.
I call it people-to-people politics and that's what politics should be about, reaching out and helping one another and touching one another about what we're going to do.
Living in Washington, you can't take politics too seriously. I draw the line at honesty. I have no time for political hacks who say things they don't believe because they get paid to.
All the political angst and moral melodrama about getting 'the rich' to pay 'their fair share' is part of a big charade. This is not about economics, it is about politics.
If I bring up political power, personal power, it sounds like they're my terms, and they're not.
Among other things Jonestown was an example of a definition well known to sociologists of religion: a cult is a religion with no political power.
