I've rarely kept my distance from kind of - I don't know if we can call it politics but kind of civic engagement and that kind of thing except I tended to think 'Well do it yourself before you start telling other people what they should be doing.'

I detest politics to be honest with you. It's a cesspool. And I don't think I would fare well in that cesspool because I don't believe in political correctness and I certainly don't believe in dishonesty.

I don't think consensus-building politics is what I'm meant to be doing.

I think that people are tired. They're tired of the same old kind of politics. People want a new tone to politics.

I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.

First I think more Americans need to declare their independence from partisan politics on both sides. The more that Americans declare their independence the more the parties will have to compete for their votes using reason rather than the hateful appeals.

I don't think politics has anything to do with left right or center. It has to do with trying to do right by people.

I think that you can disagree with people and debate over their positions with issues without engaging in the politics of personal destruction.

I hate all politics. I don't like either political party. One should not belong to them - one should be an individual standing in the middle. Anyone that belongs to a party stops thinking.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country's scared.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration... that we were going to do the right thing even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who's occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can't be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

Before I went to jail I was active in politics as a member of South Africa's leading organization - and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think.

I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that patriot.

I always voted at my party's call and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.

The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal - that you can gather votes like box tops - is I think the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.

A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks mostly sits.

Liberalism is I think resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.

You may think the president is all-powerful but he is not. He needs a lot of guidance from the Lord.

Conservatism has had from its inception vigorously positive intellectually rigorous agenda and thinking. That agenda should have in my three pillars: strengthen the economy strengthen our security and strengthen our families.

I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats we will stop telling the truth about them.

So much of my poetry begins with something that I can describe in visual terms so thinking about distance thinking about how life begins and what might be watching us.

I don't think Auden liked my poetry very much he's very Anglican.

I think it was T.S. Eliot who talked about good poetry being felt before it's understood. I believe that. There are some bands where I love their lyrics but I don't have a clue what they're on about.

I think that the job of poetry its political job is to refresh the idea of justice which is going dead in us all the time.