David Brooks
We are a democratic, egalitarian people who spend our days desperately trying to climb over each other.Collection: People
Memo to young journalists: Democratic victories are always ascribed to hope; Republican ones to rage.Collection: Victory
The legitimacy of a war is not established by how it is organized but by what it achieves.Collection: War
Bill Clinton pandered by telling you what you wanted to hear. John Kerry panders by never telling you what you don't want to hear. This is negative pandering; he talks a lot without really ruling anything out so you can draw your own conclusions.....Kerry has been talking for years, and yet such is the thicket of his verbiage that he has achieved almost complete strategic ambiguity.Collection: Talking
It's a completely irrational decision to drop out of school.Collection: School
Clearly, politics is a team sport. Trump is not so much of a team player.Collection: Sports
I'm not a kicker and a screamer.Collection: Kickers
I'm thankful that we live in a crassly commercial, polarized culture, so media jackals like me have a lot of work to do.Collection: Media
I think there are two basic approaches you can use for campaign finance. One is complete openness, everybody knows absolutely everything, but no limits. But you let people decide.The other is just have a national public system.Collection: Thinking
Since 2005, a majority of Americans, according to the Gallup poll, have said it was wrong and a mistake to go into Iraq.Collection: Mistake
We are all fundamentally equal souls, and if you make a zillion dollars, you're not any better than anybody else spiritually. You're still an equal soul.Collection: Soul
That is the job of the Catholic Church, to be a balance to the materialistic drives of our culture and of economy.Collection: Jobs
Most poor people in America are white. The family breakdown issue is an issue that crosses all sorts of racial lines. High school dropout issues. But because of the flow of events which involve the racial component, we've sometimes confused racial issues with other issues which are trans-racial.Collection: Confused
President Obama was the first president not to abide by the limits in the general election.Collection: President
The gun becomes this psychological totem, this thing of who I am. And it's almost as if using the gun is going to be the thing that's going to be my expression of how I make a difference in the world.Collection: Gun
The natural human reaction is to greet hatred with hatred, revenge by revenge. That's the natural genetic reaction.Collection: Revenge
I do think British and American politics rhyme. They go in cycles. They go in Thatcher-Reagan cycles, Blair-Clinton cycles.Collection: Thinking
Trade agreements are a net benefit for the world, and a net benefit for our foreign policy, and in the long run, given the dislocations, are a net benefit for us, too.Collection: Running
As a director, I like trying to unlock the subtext of the scene and try to put the camera in a place that helps that.Collection: Trying
I was really fortunate that I went to a high school where we actually had a film theory program.Collection: School
I want to try to make big films that hopefully connect with people.Collection: People
I would like to see an animating passion. Tim Kaine actually had a good line. What animated you before you got into politics? And she actually does have a story there to tell about children. And so drawing that animating passion will do good.Collection: Children
Often, I go and see films where I can see the beats coming. So, if I read something where I don't see the beats coming and it takes me somewhere unexpected, that's a great thing to build upon.Collection: Unexpected
For those of us who believe in it, there has to be a movement that says, "We still believe in trade. We still believe in international engagement for America. But for those losers or those who are suffering, we've got your back."Collection: Believe
We live in a culture of a big me. We're encouraged - we raise our kids to think how great they are, where we have to market ourselves to get through life. We're in social media, where we broadcast highlight - highlight reels of our own lives on Facebook.Collection: Kids
I'm a pundit. I'm, like, paid to be a narcissistic blowhard and be in front of the camera.Collection: Cameras
I do think trying to live each day as a bunch of moral occasions, did I live up to what I would hope, and, if I didn't, what can I do tomorrow to be a little better, I do think we can improve. We get better at life as we get older.Collection: Thinking
Bibi Netanyahu, froze the settlements and offered to go toward a two-state solution. The Palestinians didn't take him up on it. Historically, we have had a series of these offers. And the settlements themselves are not the keystone here. It seems to me myopic and bizarre that at the last moment, the Barack Obama administration would surrender the whole balanced array of policies that are obstacles to peace and focus on the one that is most detrimental to Israel.Collection: Focus
The fact that there could be an ISIS West Bank, the fact that the Palestinian government in Gaza doesn't even acknowledge Israel's right to exist, the fact of constant terror, delegitimization campaigns in the Palestinian schools, these are all much bigger facts. And for the Barack Obama administration to focus on this one fact, almost, not to the expense, but to diminish some of the others which are much more important, is to cast all the blame on Israel and to take the U.N. policy toward Israel, which has been longstanding, and sort of surrender to it.Collection: School
The question is whether Donald Trump recognizes that Vladimir Putin is a bad guy. And I guess there's no indication that he regards Putin as in any way a bad guy.Collection: Guy
There was this famous clash of civilization thesis from Samuel Huntington, a political theorist. And the idea was that Western civilization is at war with Islam and maybe some of the other civilizations around the world. And I don't agree with that. But I do think there is such a thing as Western civilization. I think it starts with the Greeks and the Romans. Then it goes through the Enlightenment - or the Reformation, the Enlightenment. It goes through the scientific age. And it somewhat defines some of the cultures and mores of Europe and North America and some other countries.Collection: Country
Donald Trump understands sense of belonging. And a lot of people think globalization, any time you make any particularity, you're sort of offending some other group. And a lot of people in this country think they belong to America anymore, and he at least appeals to some sense of belonging. I like the idea that we belong to Western traditions, so I'm glad he appeals to that sort of thing.Collection: Country
It's almost inherent, but I'm a massive Stanley Kubrick fan. I'm a big admirer of what guys like Christopher Nolan have been able to do. For me, to be able to try to make big films that reach a lot of people, and that hopefully have something to say, is a lofty goal, but that's my goal.Collection: People
I want to make big films. That's always been my ambition.Collection: Ambition
It's impossible for one person to think of everything.Collection: Thinking
The madman theory is that you can be a successful deterrer if you - if they think you could be crazy. And so I think it can be very effective, so long as you're not actually crazy.Collection: Crazy
It's always dangerous to overinterpret what Donald Trump says at any one moment.Collection: Moments
The North Korean regime is extremely fiery, extremely insecure, sometimes hysterical. And when you're around somebody who's screaming and unstable, the last thing you want to do is add to the instability with your own unstable, hysterical rhetoric.Collection: Insecure
If it's all win-loss, then you do whatever you can to win and to make money and to beat the deal.Collection: Winning
I do think creating an open free-trade economy but with strong social support is the way to go.Collection: Strong
I just think, realistically, there's a lot of room outside the Trump populist right and the Bernie-Sanders-Elizabeth-Warren populist left. There are a lot of us who believe in open trade, open borders, a dynamic forward-looking economy, not a nostalgic economy, but do want to provide a significant level of social service or sort of economic Milton Friedman foreign policy, Ronald Reagan domestic policy, Franklin Roosevelt. And there's a lot of room in the center.Collection: Believe
I think Trump's attention span is super low. I don't think he has the expertise to actually run a foreign policy.Collection: Running
I think Romney's foreign policy is sensible.Collection: Thinking
You have a country that is 20 percent liberal, 40 percent conservative. You have a country where maybe 22 percent have faith in government. If you're a liberal, it's just going to be tough. And you should just expect that. And it's tough for people on the right, too, because they don't get what they want either if you're, say, a libertarian. So, you have got the country sort of against you. And, nevertheless, you have a president.Collection: Country
Donald Trump didn't emerge from the orthodoxy of the Republican Party. And so there's going to be bigger differences than normal.Collection: Party
I think Barack Obama's foreign policy will be regarded more failure than success.Collection: Thinking
I think, from a progressive point of view, to have a Democratic Congress and a Democratic White House, and to have spent the time on Obamacare, which had real benefits, 20 million insured, but not on inequality, was a major cost to the Democratic Party, costing them their majorities, but also a bit of a cost to the country, because it didn't address the fundamental issues that led to Donald Trump and that led to a lot of unhappiness, just the continued widening inequality.Collection: Country
If Donald Trump is just tweeting about a union guy, then he's just being the bully we have seen. But if he uses the power of the presidency to back up some of those tweets and he's really, really coming down with a hammer on people he doesn't like using the power of the presidency, then we're seeing something very new and very different.Collection: People
On the larger issue of the travel ban, our friend Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post I think put it pretty well. I'm not sure it's illegal, but it's extremely stupid.Collection: Stupid