Rachel Maddow
I'm not a screamer. I'm confrontational, but I don't think that translates into anger.Collection: Anger
Gay people - generally speaking - have a responsibility to our own community and to future generations of gay people to come out, if and when we feel that we can.Collection: Future
My life is better with every year of living it.Collection: Birthday
Military preparedness is absolutely a form of strength.Collection: Strength
The problem that I think is reasonable to assert about Fox and its coverage is that they make up stories out of whole cloth and then make a big deal out of them.
It used to be that we disagreed over the basic facts we were fighting over, and we had different opinions about them. Now I think we accept different sources of authority. ... And people can establish credibility on their own say-so as long as nobody follows the trail and calls them out on it.
I'm hopeless by e-mail, by phone, by text.
I'm a national security liberal, which I tell people because it's meant to sound absurd.
I think a lot of people of my generation are discomfited by the assertion of neutrality in the mainstream media, this idea that they're the voice of God. I think it's just honest to say, yes, you know where I'm coming from but you can fact-check anything I say.
When it starts to seem like you have popped into bed with a specific party, it makes it difficult for people to believe you are not doing someone else's bidding for them.
I think service is honorable, and that was always inculcated in me.
As proud and capable as it is, I think the idea that the military can build new countries is a tall order, and it's the sort of thing that we would only expect from a military that we have superresourced and thought of as supercapable.
I'm sure other people in the business have considered reasons why they're doing what they're doing, but I do think that if you're gay you have a responsibility to come out.
So this is the only TV show in America where I am quite confident that you, the audience, will share my excitement when I tell you that coming up in our next segment, we have the best graph ever. Best graph ever.
Having a place out of the city is a shortcut toward the mental reset I need.
The folks celebrating Jim Bunning are seeing him as an anti-government, anti-spending activist. But to embrace Jim Bunning is to embrace a strange record, if you really are a libertarian, if you really are a deficit hawk, if you really care about spending and responsibility.
I have a file of letters and bits of ephemera from friends who have died. I have had lots of friends who died of AIDS.
If the colonists hadn't rejected British militarism and the massive financial burden of maintaining the British military, America wouldn't exist.
I have a constitutional weakness in which I am very easily distracted by flashing lights. If there is a TV on in the room, I can't have a conversation with you. I won't eat, I won't sleep, I'll just meld with my couch.
I don't think about people watching me on TV. I think it would stress me out.
A handkerchief can never be put in another pocket after it has been in one pocket. I don't walk under ladders. I have items of clothing that are lucky for me. That rotates, but I am luck-oriented.
I loved being on the radio. Being paid to talk? It's like being paid to eat.
I would like to be a polyglot.
I think that presidents don't give up power that has accrued to them by the precedent of previous presidents. Even when they say they would like to, I think once they get there they don't give it up.
Pentagon dollars are essentially seen as a different kind of funding that doesn't have to stand for itself and make an argument for itself in the house of Congress.
In the little town where I live in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, we now have a 'Public Safety Complex' around the corner from what used to be our hokey Andy Griffith-esque fire station.
It's not just the small-potatoes post-9/11 Homeland spending that feels a little off mission. It's the big-ticket stuff too.
The spy boom has been a beautiful windfall for architects, construction companies, IT specialists, and above all defense contractors, enriching thousands of private companies and dozens of local economies hugging the Capital Beltway.
If something is being done on a secret basis in national security, that's a great reason for elected officials to not talk about it. And that's a great way to shirk accountability for it with the public.
People who disagree on important issues don't agree on the facts.
Here’s the thing about rights. They’re not actually supposed to be voted on. That’s why they’re called rights.Collection: Rights
When Conservatives crusade against government while they are trying to be appointed to head the government, I think that's weird!Collection: Thinking
If you're someone people count on, particularly in difficult moments, that's a sign of a life lived honorably.Collection: Inspiring
The single best thing about honesty is that it requires no follow-up.Collection: Honesty
Clearly, there has been a lack of imagination about how much can go wrong.Collection: Imagination
I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform.Collection: Party
Fascism is not just a word. It`s not just a way to insult someone with whom you disagree. It is a specific thing. It is a specific form of far right politics that involves a sort of narcissistic cult of superman action around the leader of the party.Collection: Party
Gay people exist. There's nothing we can do in public policy that makes more of us exist, or less of us exist. And you guys have been arguing for a generation that public policy ought to essentially demean gay people as a way of expressing disapproval of the fact that we exist, but you don't make any less of us exist. You just are arguing in favor of more discrimination, and more discrimination doesn't make straight people's lives any better.Collection: Gay
Activism is setting a goal of something you would like to be different, and figuring out what would have to change to achieve that goal. It's sort of like math.Collection: Math
The downside of playing dumb is that you sound dumb.Collection: Dumb
Humans are ambitious and rational and proud. And we don't fall in line with people who don't respect us and who we don't believe have our best interests at heart. We are willing to follow leaders, but only to the extent that we believe they call on our best, not our worst.Collection: Inspirational
Don't focus on what I'm wearing. Focus on what's coming out of my face.Collection: Focus
I don't have any option. I'm not going to be less gay or more pretty. I can't try to have less personality or fewer controversial opinions.Collection: Gay
There`s a reason people pause their lives to engage in political activism and pressure their local political leaders. Because as a whole, even if you can`t identify any one instance, as a whole pressure works and sometimes it starts with something as simple as pushing the button on the intercom.Collection: Simple
I really believe in trying to increase the amount of useful information in the world and in being accurate in the sense that you can take what I say to the bank, even if you disagree with me.Collection: Believe
I think of my job on television as explaining things.Collection: Jobs
Hopefully life is long. Do stuff you will enjoy thinking about and telling stories about for many years to come. Do stuff you will want to brag about.Collection: Inspirational
When people get to speak about themselves and the things that matter to them, on their own terms, we see them as who they are. They can't be reduced to objects of derision.Collection: People
If you took a cracked pot and you cracked that cracked pot, you'd be approaching the level of cracked pottery we are talking about here.Collection: Talking
We got the first WikiLeaks publication of documents hacked and stolen by Russian government sources from the DNC, from the Democratic Party, and they started publishing those stolen documents from the DNC right before the Democrats started their convention.Good political timing if you`re trying to help [Donald] Trump and hurt the Democrats.Collection: Hurt