Anne Applebaum Quotes

I don't look at polls.

Some people who've read my story think I had a terrible childhood and that I was neglected or even abused, while others feel that my parents, while certainly flawed, also had truly wonderful qualities. And that's the way it should be, because in real life two people can look at the same president and one will see a hero and the other a villain.

If the critics are right that I've made all my decisions based on polls, then I must not be very good at reading them.

I have my opinions about the way my father was. But they are my opinions, not necessarily the truth, and they are certainly not the whole spectrum of what this man was going through. It's my young, selfish interpretation of that person.

The premise of my book is that everyone is a bit ideological to some extent. Everyone comes from a ideological perspective.

Of course, my own political beliefs inform the ideas I come up with.

Politics is not an exact science.

Any politician in a democracy has to be mindful of public opinion.

Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

Politics, you will observe, is the science of guessing right.

I'd rather be underestimated by the polltakers than by the voters.

Early polls mean nothing.

I don't believe in the polls. I try to concentrate on the day of elections.

I've always been a fan of the Overton Window. It's not a piece of glass but a political theory named after the conservative American political analyst, Joseph P Overton.

Some people will always think I've got the eyes of Satan. Others will think I'm a TV god. People have the right to criticise.

Elections are a good deal like marriages. There's no accounting for anyone's taste. Every time we see a bridegroom we wonder why she ever picked him, and it's the same with public officials.

The notion that any one person can describe 'what really happened' is an absurdity. If ten - or a hundred - people witness an event, there will be ten - or a hundred - different versions of what took place. What we see and how we interpret it depends entirely upon our individual past experience.

Political experts are saying the reason John Kerry is doing so well is because he's 'electable.' Hey, so was Al Gore - in fact, he even got elected and it didn't help him at all.

I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see—and I don't.

Political elections are a good deal like marriages, there's no accounting for anyone's taste.

We always try to interpret things in accordance with what we want and not as they are.

But my dear man, reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

Whatever the polls do between now and then, winning is what matters.