Masha Gessen Quotes

General David Petraeus was so successful at getting on covers of magazines, having journalists fall in love with him, that in fact he was able to use that power to go around the normal chain of command.

If you track something like a political campaign and parcel out what's being communicated in a literal and narrative sense, and what's being communicated by means of emotional and symbolic language, you might find that it's the latter elements that absolutely dominate and move people. It makes me want to take that language and expose it.

Trump, like Putin, has a demonstrably thin skin and short temper when it comes to being criticized by journalists.

I've learned over the years to hear what Putin is railing against in his own railing way.

Here in the U.S. we do have a problem with a president Donald Trump who uses language in two distinctly destructive ways. One is to lie, and to use words to mean their opposite. Like, when he calls the Russian investigation a "witch hunt." He can't call it a "witch hunt" because a witch hunt is something that a powerful person does against a powerless person. The most powerful man in the world cannot be the object of a witch hunt.

From Mr. [Donald] Trump's perspective, right, he simply heard [Vladimir] Putin compliment him. He then responded by complimenting him. He never thought that he might be being played.

I think Chinese leadership is trying to tell the world they have another set of logic or reasoning or values which are different from yours. Of course, I don't think they believe that. It's just an argument that's made when you can't confront the truth and facts. They really want to maintain power.

A politician's words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.

The nature of politics is to subtract meaning from language.

Newspaper-men as a rule had no great respect for the lower House; Senators had less; and Cabinet officers had none at all.

There comes a time in every political convention where I eat my words.

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

The bully pulpit is not an open microphone. You have to target it very carefully.

While the politicians fight for place and power, what of the destinies of the common people, in whose name and for whose alleged benefit the contending factions appeal to the world at large?

Diplomacy, is persuasion in the shadow of power.

In the struggle for power, propaganda is an instrument to be used by those who want to secure or retain power just as much as it is by those wanting to displace them.

Cabinet making is necessarily ruthless.

I am having my hair turned gray by dealing with the Russian and Japanese negotiators.

Liberals in their meetings utter bold words; they strut, grimace belligerently, and then issue a weasel-worded statement which has tremendous implications, if read between the lines.

The only way to deal with the Czar is to be the last to leave the room.

As problems have grown more complex, leaders have struggled to find the language to discuss them clearly, credibly and at the right emotional amplitude. Nonplussed and tongue-tied, politicians give themselves over to message gurus … who peddle the notion that poll-tested words — honed and targeted with scientific precision — can pick the lock of public opinion.

The ones who are the smartest are the ones who use us. In other words, they understand the relationship between the press and leaders.

I am talking about strategies that were developed, working with the Trump campaign. I really do believe that much of what you saw coming out of Trump's mouth was a play from Putin's playbook.

Even if you have presidents like FDR dealing with someone like Stalin, with whom he didn't exactly all the time disagree... He wasn't always in lockstep saying Stalin was wonderful all the time. Donald Trump never criticizes Putin.

Hillary Clinton had scheduled an interview while I was at the height of the Weinstein reporting, and her folks got in touch and said, 'We hear you're working on a big story,' sounded very concerned, and tried to cancel the interview.