Cicero most reminds me of Harold Wilson. Both men knew how to keep the show on the road.

That young man seeks opportunities to test his principles as readily as a drunk picks fights in a bar.

History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events.

What a heap of ash most political careers amount to, when one really stops to consider them!

Everyone thinks politics will just go on the way it is. I don't agree.

First comes an idea. Then, characters begin to evolve out of the landscape of that idea. And then, finally, characters dominate: plot is simply a function of what these people might do or be. Everything has to flow from their personalities; otherwise it will not be emotionally engaging, or plausible.

Their souls were contagious. ... Bloodsuckers, spiders and vampires: that was what Lenin called them.