James Thurber Quotes

Every administration is theater because this is the nature of public life in America.

There is a thin line between politics and theatricals.

Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close

There is no business like show business, Irving Berlin once proclaimed, and thirty years ago he may have been right, but not anymore. Nowadays almost every business is like show business, including politics, which has become more like show business than show business is

Politics is a lot like acting. You have to be on all the time.

Washington and Hollywood spring from the same DNA.

I was in my first movie when I was five. I just loved to entertain and put on a show.

Politics is just show business for ugly people.

Politics is show business for ugly people.

I think it's a terrible shame that politics has become show business.

We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.

To cover politics in Washington allows you to live in the very, very wide gap between what the actual truth is, and how people are trying to manipulate the truth. They speak in the language of spin, obsequiousness, obfuscation. The meta of politics is just this endless source of material that can shed light on the psychology of the process.

American politics is theatre. There is a frightening emotionalism at national conventions.

You'll notice that Nancy Reagan never drinks water when Ronnie speaks.

I was born to be on the stage.

There can hardly be a more grave act imaginable than to dupe a democracy into going to war, but this is what Bush has done.

Even for a President who is not a professional actor, misrepresentation is a part of the job. Commentators who do not bear this in mind are like critics in the audience shouting, “Tell us what you really think” at an actor who is trying to bring off his drama.

The delusion of the people is necessary to the dominant party. I see the extent to which that delusion has been already carried, and I see there is no length to which it may not be pushed by a party in possession of the revenues and the legal authorities of the United States

Lincoln was right about not fooling all the people all of the time. But the Republicans haven't given up trying.

You can't be a public affairs specialist if you're actually working on the public's affairs.

Politics is the entertainment industry for ugly people!

I have no more obligation to spin. When you’re in the White House, you spin.

I was asked to write a press briefing emphasizing the positive steps the administration had taken in the area and minimizing the negative ones. I was an Assistant to the President. I have done that for several Presidents. When you’re on the staff of the President of the United States you try and make things look as good as possible.

There is a lot of spinning and a lot of lying in our times—in politics, in government, in sports and everywhere. It’s gotten to the point where … you no longer believe the first version of anything. It wasn’t always that way. I guess it started for me with Vietnam, when the establishment felt it had to lie to justify a policy that as it turned out was never going to work.

Officials in every White House crowbar the facts to make their cases.