I was a woman in a man's world. I was a Democrat in a Republican administration. I was an intellectual in a world of bureaucrats. I talked differently. This may have made me a bit like an ink blot.
You can have solid third party politics, but the problem is you're all lumped in to all the fringe groups. That's a stereotype that happens.
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.
Well Australia's been in Afghanistan from the get go, way back in 2001, but we have been resolute throughout and with support from both sides of Australian politics.
Many people in the world believe that in the 21st century, the Asia-Pacific - Asia in particular - will play a more important role in global economy and politics and that Asia will become an important engine for the world economy.
I'm used to politics at an international level: people put together an argument and, even if you vehemently disagree with them, well, you can recognise it's an argument and respond.
And yet, there are still people in American politics who, for some reason, cling to this belief that America is better off adopting the economic policies of nations whose people who immigrate here from there.
Politics is its own world. It is a court and if the king's eye lights on you, you are a powerful figure. If the king's eye wanders elsewhere, you are out, whatever your title.
It's my view that human dignity - an attribute which for years has been taken by the Left in British politics - resides in fact in Tory values of independence, individuality and self determination.
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.
If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.
When I came to Johannesburg from the countryside, I knew nobody, but many strangers were very kind to me. I then was dragged into politics, and then, subsequently, I became a lawyer.
I think he was absolutely right not to go to UN last week... First things first - that is, values and people here in their local communities, and remembering all politics is local, and trusting people more.
Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility to be, for the world, an example of a genuinely free, democratic, just and humane society.
The toughest thing to do in politics is to do the right thing when your supporters think the right thing is something else.
I have an aim - I have a clear aim in my mind, and the aim is that I do not like what I see in Indian politics; it is something that is inside my heart.
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.
I think one of the most threatening places to be in politics is a black conservative because there are so many liberals who want to continue to reinforce a stereotype that doesn't exist about America.
I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, 'Give, give.'
There is a wonderful feeling of power when you're a director, but I don't think I need that, and I'm OK without it.
Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges... which are employed altogether for their benefit.
