You need to be real enough to be believable, but you don't necessarily have to be real enough to be real. There is a distinction.

You don't want your credibility banana to turn brown, but you do want to speak out about what you believe in.

Only two things ever stop the government from doing anything: money and politics

At the end of your days, you will be judged by your gallop, not by your stumble.

I did not always agree, personally, on the positions that Bartlet, character from the West Wing, took and I argued against them on many occasions. But Aaron Sorkin said, "Martin, that's you, that's not Barlet. It's a very political decision he has to make." I found from the very beginning that when I infused my own personal feelings about an issue it went against the grain of the character.

I used to defend the West Wing show from the charge of sentimentality or wish-fulfilment, because I think if you do go into the Barack Obama White House you will find six or seven people around him who are true believers. We make these people climb this filthy rope and then we stand at the bottom and say, "Hey, your hands are dirty!" To show heroic, progressive, democratic politics at work was more than I ever expected.

The invisible carnage of the unf-ed wives and the children not being read to is just wafting out.