John Jeremiah Sullivan Quotes

But I think theatre in a repressive society is an immensely exciting event and theatre in a luxurious old, affluent old society like ours is an entertaining event.

There are, of course, all sorts of other unpleasant regimes outside the walls as well - the military dictators of Latin America and the apartheid regime of South Africa.

Right now, we have no possibility of politics because we have a one-party state.

More harm was done in the 20th century by faceless bureaucrats than tyrant dictators.

In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive government in the world, if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they could see any chance of thereby ameliorating their condition.

Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid.

Moammar Gaddafi, who has called himself the 'Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,' should go down in history with the Emperor Bokassa and Idi Amin as a grotesque reminder of why people have the right to change their government.

Egypt, once a melting pot of peoples, classes, cultures and religions, has, after 30 years of Mubarak's rule, become a place of intolerance and distrust of the other.

I should like to underline: no people, no country, in which a Communist dictatorship has been established, ever found its way out of it.

I grew up in a dictatorship in East Africa.

That President Mohammad Khatami's policies have been blocked is the bitterest incident in the contemporary Iranian history. This means that the wishes of millions of people who voted for Khatami and called for freedom and justice have been ignored... Why should cultural activities and journalism be so risky in Iran?

Political or religious dissenters are the plague of every totalitarian regime.

If I were a citizen of Russia, I would resist this communist dictatorship as vigorously as I have endeavored to resist the encroachment upon our democratic institutions in America. I hold that government of one class, denying the other classes the right to participate is tyranny.

Political evils must be sorely felt before they can be removed.

One man’s democratization is another man’s destabilization.

… in many countries scholars are being sent into exile for racial, religious and political reasons, in increasing numbers .... It means that more and more people are growing afraid to face differences of opinion and yet it is increasingly important that throughout the world differing opinions should be listened to and weighed by the people as a whole.

He [Rafael Trujillo] had his torture chambers. He had his political assassinations. But he kept law and order, cleaned the place up, made it sanitary, built public works, and he didn’t bother the United States. So that was fine with us.

The government has muffled the voices that best represent the most significant segments of society.

This is a struggle between a struggling democracy and a vicious dictatorship, and I think we should take sides.

When people hear the term 'political prisoner,' especially on the Left, it becomes a kind of abstraction. Folks are aware of injustice, and they're aware that there are folks in prison who are in prison, you know, largely because of their activism.

You build dreams, you build castles in the air, and you hope that at least part of that will be realized, even under apartheid.

I cut my teeth as a journalist writing about societies that didn't have democracy.

The first time I played was in Buenos Aires - was in 1983. The dictatorship was in position.

The exercise of politics is criminalized in Venezuela.