Nicola Sturgeon Quotes

Politicians are ambitious not to make important decisions but to say important things.

What Mr. [Robert F.] Kennedy says lacks only the merit of being true ... Bobby Kennedy can jump off the capital dome or whatever else he has to do to get the attention of the American people.

Of course the Liberal Democrats are going to say things to try and get attention - but I don't think the country is paying much attention.

You know the bark is worse than the bite in D.C.

Politicians are just Daily Mail journalists writ large, aren't they? They're always telling us what's going to happen, and we know they don't know!

I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president's birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing 'Happy Birthday,' like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, 'Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!'

When you go on the stage before thousands of people, you can be excited and nervous, but it's not fear.

In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme.

When I got on stage, I would have a rush of adrenaline; everybody gets it. Normally after the first night it becomes more controllable, and as long as I could ride the wave, I was still in charge.

What I've certainly learned is that whenever I've said anything about real politics, I've come under attack. So it's best simply to play politics on television.

Politicians often confuse what sounds good with what really works.

People [in politics] do go on and talk.

A politician wants to come off as a happy warrior. To be contemplative seems almost effete, fancy – dispiriting somehow to much of your audience. He [Barack Obama] is not afraid to be this way at all.

We don't have to do what candidates do—talk about huge issues for 30 seconds in a field somewhere trying to make sure that cows do no urinate on our shoes.

I can't remember that I ever had just a minute of stage fright.

I sympathize with politicians who have to watch every syllable they utter for fear it will be misused by somebody with an agenda.

If you construct political narratives around the psychodramas of politicians, even when they don't invite it, you open the way for those who can play this game more effectively.

You talk through what exactly happened to Howard Dean on the campaign trail, what Bill Clinton must have lived through, what the daily grind of doing what these people have to do. And they can never lose their temper, they can never be tired, and they can never slip up, or it's on-camera, and it's everywhere - and it's over.

If you look at what these politicians do when they speak, most of the time they are trying to convey a tone... if I make all these points and move my hands this way, I can get re-elected. When in reality, they aren't saying anything.

I've played the Royal Albert Hall to 8,500 people, and there wasn't a nerve in my body.

Being out there in a high-pressure situation with a live audience and a live TV camera on you, it brings something out.

Usually in the first performances I'm completely panicked. And I pull myself together. By the time you get to the end of the play, you really start to have fun.

I've been around politics a long time. I've seen it at its best and its worst, been at so many events, listened to private conversations versus public speaking, understood the game of it, and in many ways the theatrics.

I have no message to give the politicians of the world. They're all completely addicted to promiscuous verbalization and I'm quite sure they would not be at all interested in hearing about cut-ups and hieroglyphics and still less interested to hear about silence.

When you're in front of an audience, you know if it didn't work. I get very nervous and have a fear of failure that is much more profound than in the podcast world.