We mistake politics for legislative debate. You can be passionate without being personal.

As I became very defined in my personal politics I turned down some films that I slightly regret now I'm not going to say what they were.

Every person has only so much attention to give and politics and government takes up only a fraction of what it did 25 years ago.

As a politician who cherishes religious conviction in his personal sphere but regards politics as a domain belonging outside religion I believe that this view is seriously flawed.

Imagine a civilisation that's way in advance of us wants to communicate with us and assist us in our development. The information we provide to them must reflect our highest aspirations and ideals and not just be some crazy person's bizarre politics or religion.

I just feel like I'm a very lucky person to have a new life outside of politics.

Inauthenticity is endemic in American politics today. The political backrooms where I spent much of my career were just as benighted as my personal life equally crowded with shadowy strangers and compromises truths I hoped to deny. I lived not in one closet but in many.

What matters most in politics is personality. It's not issues it's not image. It's who you are and what you represent.

I am genuinely not an over-the-top kind of person about politics or anything else.

I first came to think about media and politics in the late 1960s having observed some distortions up close but since then I wouldn't say that my personal experience has remained an important motive for my writing about media.