Robert Caro Quotes

People who know Paul Ryan say, 'He will be president one day.'

I didn't get to the Senate by accident.

Obama might do well to remember that his fast rise from the Illinois state Senate was due in large part to an uncanny ability to make friends and find mentors.

I'm not terribly focused on whether I even could ever become the Leader of the Liberal Party or the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in the future.

Rock stars generally don't last in the Senate, starting with John Kennedy. Too much work, too slow, too little juice. Getting something accomplished takes a remarkable amount of tedious work. Rock stars who become senators either run for something else or retire on the job. They certainly don't make a mark.

You don’t become a statesman unless you are first a good politician.

I have covered Pelosi for years, and always wondered how she learned to operate and excel in politics the way she does.

I had dreams of high political office.

Politics is ultimately not that complicated a profession; it's where the mediocre distinguish themselves.

Let me tell you this: if Marco Rubio - even though he's only been in the Senate for a very short period of time, that man has a huge, huge opportunity in this country, and I think he could be the president.

There are politicians who seethe with ambition all the time, and there are a lot of other politicians who don't. I'm in the second category, that's all.

In politics people build whole reputations off of getting one thing right.

It's like going into the Senate. You know, the first time you get there, you're all excited, 'My God, how did I ever get here?' Then, about six months later, you say, 'How the hell did the rest of them get here?'

I think that people like Bloomberg, they're complete thugs. No question about it. But on the other hand, it must be said that they are politically savvy. They don't get into those positions of power - in the case of Bloomberg, both economic and political power - by being anybody's fool.

I grew up thinking that if I wanted to go be prime minister, I could.

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

The first day you're a leader is the beginning of the end of your political career.

As I climbed the electoral ladder - from state assemblyman to mayor of Woodbridge and finally to governor of New Jersey - political compromises came easy to me because I'd learned how to keep a part of myself innocent of them.

There's nothing in my background that would have said I was destined to be a senior politician.

Your first six months in the Senate, you spend a lot of time wondering how the hell you got here. After that, you look around at your colleagues and wonder how the hell any of them got here.

The first years in Parliament I did nothing - nothing to any purpose. My own distinction was my darling object.

All the anxious politicians of his party have been looking upon him as certainty, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.

[Warren] Harding didn't like being a Senator; he liked being in the Senate.

I would rather have a full term in the Senate—a place in which I would feel more consciously able to discharge the duties required, and where there is more chance to make a reputation, and less danger of losing it than four years of the presidency.

[Referring to Ronald Reagan:] When you meet the President, you ask yourself, "How did it ever occur to anybody that he should be governor much less President?