Political folk talk a lot these days about 'messaging' - a neologism designed to describe the way in which parties and politicians consciously characterize their efforts. It is only intended to be positive - i.e. 'Our messaging is designed to show we care.'

It's a positive thing to talk about terrible things and make people laugh about them.

When I was a kid no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. That's a terrible burden.

More brands are waking up to their social responsibility and doing good work through cause marketing campaigns. Yet too many still go about it the wrong way. I mean 'wrong' in two senses. Firstly they are marketing ineffectively and secondly as a consequence their positive social impact is not maximized.

When people ask me about my story I just go through the positive stuff: the tent-pole moments the big landmark checkpoints.

People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints such people have a corpse in their mouth.

There is a sense that things if you keep positive and optimistic about what can be done do work out.

If you are given a chance to be a role model I think you should always take it because you can influence a person's life in a positive light and that's what I want to do. That's what it's all about.

When you are enthusiastic about what you do you feel this positive energy. It's very simple.

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.

Most people get their politics obviously from TV shows about senators or movies about them or... all the day-to-day press and the talk shows.

This idea that a book can either be about character and feeling or about politics and idea is just a false binary. Ideas are an expression of the feelings and the intense emotions we hold about the world.

People meet in bars after work all over the world and talk about the great problems of life and death and the world and politics and they don't take themselves seriously. They can do nothing else except chat about these things in bars after work.

There was a widespread indignation in the American media. They were saying 'How can you make a movie during an election that's about politics? What are you doing? Are you trying to influence people's lives?' To which my response was 'Well I hope so.'

Money has too big an influence on our politics in Washington and somehow we need to do something about that.

The thing about American politics as I've learned is there is no choice.

We don't tend to write about disease in fiction - not just teen novels but all American novels - because it doesn't fit in with our idea of the heroic romantic epic. There is room only for sacrifice heroism war politics and family struggle.

Broadway is such a diverse community. Everybody knows how I believe and everyone believes and it's not a big deal. But in Hollywood if you talk about politics - especially if you're a Republican - or spirituality it's just not something people want to hear about.

About 25 years ago I started out as a reporter covering politics. And that sort of just evolved into organized crime because organized crime and politics were the same thing in Boston.

We talked about politics constantly in my family growing up in North Carolina. There were always debates. Being of Greek background it's in our blood to drink coffee and talk politics.

I was raised to speak out about politics and the world around me. I would do it whether I was in the public or not. It is the way I was taught. The American way.

It is important to recognize and politics positive thinking is often the slaves' virtue - something that people do to con themselves about the burden and change being placed upon them.

My first meeting as a senator my first day they were already talking about the next election. Part of that's the permanent campaign part of that's a word I've been using more frequently 'tribal.' Our politics has become tribal: It's us versus them.

I wanted the feel in these books to be like an epic fantasy with kings queens dukes and court politics but of course like what I was explaining before about making the science make sense you have to make the politics make sense too.