Alan Garner Quotes

The bottom line as far as I was concerned was presenting to the public who Gerry Ferraro was.

I am always sort of delightedly surprised when someone recognizes me because as far as I'm concerned, I'm just going to work and getting paid to act, and that alone is fantastic; I forget people watch it, too.

A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.

Everything I've ever done is out. I don't have boxes of unreleased stuff. There's nothing in the files. I can never keep anything unless I don't like the sound of it or it didn't work. If I can sing it to an engineer, I can sing it to anyone.

Ten years ago, when I was on an airplane and I introduced myself to my seatmate, and told them [I was a psychologist], they'd move away from me. ... And now when I tell people what I do, they move toward me.

People pay attention to lyrics, and the race matter was delicate.

I think what's happened is that the general public has become much more aware of the destructive power of Wall Street.

The public does not know what is possible. We do.

I think we were naive during the first two years of the [Barack] Obama Administration because the Republicans didn't fight us on this point during the 2008 Presidential Election. Obama and McCain both ran on a clean energy platform. But now, uncontested lies have eroded hard-won public understanding. So, we have to go back and make the case again.

I actually think if the American people understood what was going on instead of just being told tidbits by this administration, they would actually be a lot more supportive of the boots on the ground.

I like the idea that [Mahatma] Gandhi is appearing now in an opera hall in all these different places, and people kind of think about it again.

There needs to be clearer communication for the public avout how valuable it [animal testing] is

Notoriety is often mistaken for fame.

It is one of the evils of democratical governments, that the people, not always seeing and frequently misled, must often feel before they can act.

I think that people are able to see that I am working hard, that I am striving openly, honestly and sincerely to achieve the results the results our country needs. I think that they are also able to see that not all goes well. Our people are smart and sharp-sighted. Yet, I believe that the main thing is to sincerely aspire to achieve the maximum, so that the country feels more secure and people live better. That's precisely how I am trying to go about my work.

I don't think my book is any more shocking than if I went out right now and brought back your local newspaper and found a story that happened around here yesterday or the day before that's just as shocking as anything in my book.

Even if the criticism is not always perfectly informed and in some cases I would deem unfair, just the noise, attention, fuss probably keeps powerful officials or agencies on their toes. And they should be on their toes when it comes to the use of deadly force.

The way the media cycle works, the way the news works, and the way people's attention span works, is that we only learn that people exist when there is crisis.

I don't look at polls, I pay no attention to them. I pay attention to the public, and the sense of where the public is on certain things, but you have to lead.

The word infrastructure means nothing to the majority of people of America. We have to come up with a sexier word than infrastructure. So the key thing is that you have to go out and promote and market this the right way like with everything in policy.

People don't know about football. They think they know about it but they don't know much.

But people turn on their televisions. They turn on their televisions and they see what's happening in Iraq. The American people are not stupid. And the one thing they understand, they understand how incredibly mismanaged and bungled this war has been by the civilians in this administration. And - I mean, you can't paper over that, any more than you can paper over Katrina.

Well, enforcement theater is OK if it's reality theater. In other words, obviously, you want to make it clear, you want to make people see that the law is being enforced.

People tell me, "Well, you understand where the voters are, Jeff, where the votes are, or what people are thinking," and they'll sort of - in a complimentary way. And it's a bit of an acknowledgement that we've been blind to some of these issues for too long.

Seventy percent of a first draft is garbage and 30 percent is gold, but you have to write 100 percent to get that 30.