Barry Levinson Quotes

I go back and forth as to whether I think Nancy Pelosi's really this dumb or not. Although, every time I hear her speak I get closer and closer to concluding that she is this dumb.

When you're running for president, you're a guest in the living room for four years. And if people don't think you're going to be around the living room as a pleasant experience, they're not going to vote for you even if they agree with you.

Hillary Clinton doesn't have any natural talents. Hillary doesn't have any natural connection to people. Hillary doesn't have any charisma, magnetism. All of that has to be manufactured by the media.

Hillary Clinton has this problem. The more she's seen, the more she's heard, the worse she does. This is not arguable.

I think I have a pretty good take on popular culture that maybe makes up for the fact that I'm not a sound-bite politician for the nightly news.

It's like in politics: You can have great intentions for the world, but if you're not a good speaker and if you're not the sort of person that people can intimately link with, then it makes it very easy to say, "Well, they're not a nice person."

He was one of the few political leaders I have ever met whose public speeches revealed more than his private conversations. [On Ronald Reagan]

I generally think that Hillary Clinton is a good egg and a good politician.

I don't think there's any difference in the two Donald Trumps. Maybe I didn't make this clear. I don't think Trump's different in Washington than he is there. The difference is you don't have anybody tweeting. The Trump in Washington compared to the Trump in Middle east trip, what's the difference? The Trump in Washington is filtered by the media.

Andrea Leadsom, I think, has all the qualities that you need at the moment. She's got a lot of zap, a lot of drive, and all the experience. Plus I think she can articulate what's needed at the moment, which is a bit of an antidote to some of the gloom and negativity and misunderstanding about what the Brexit vote means.

"Perceive" is the word that became in the '72 campaign what "charisma" was for the 1960, '64 and even the '68 campaigns. "Perceive" is the new key word. When you say perceive you imply the difference between what the candidate is and the way the public or the voters see him.

I think Marco Rubio could never have recovered from revealing himself to be pathetic.

Maybe you've had the experience where somebody's asked you a question and you give an answer, then later in the day you think, "Oh, I wish I'd said that!" I tend to journal these things and put the answers in sermons.

Obama's got a great sense of humor, but mainly he has a great thinking presence, which is uncommon. It's hard to imagine being able to do, think over answers and deliver them on television. If I were president I would constantly be spluttering.

It's not enough to be right because he [Rick Perry] is right, you got to be persuasively right, got to be intellectually agile, and I think he can do it.

Obama is seen as very, very cool. I think a lot of people find him sexy.

A politician is a man who can be verbose in fewer words than anyone else.

A good debater can be a good communicator. You have to communicate when you're president of the United States, and communicate effectively with the American people, and with the world.

I think that there are a lot of reasons to be insecure as an actress... But I don’t really have a perception issue. I’ve been pretty good about being who I am in the public’s eye.

Giving his lecture for the third time freed Dr. Lionel Gift from paying much attention to it. He had a naturally expressive style of delivery, hones over the years in elementary-econ lecture halls. He knew, without even thinking, to address the middle rows of the hall, but to occasionally "shoot" the listeners in the back corners. He knew how to make eye contact and solicit the attention of those who were thinking of other things.

I think it would count more, if we did less personal appearances.

Never in my lifetime have I been called boring. But I think I was a boring candidate for president because I tried to be responsible. And one of the greatest problems I had is that I was governor.

I just find this interesting that Ronald Reagan was regarded much the way Donald Trump is except Reagan was governor of California. He had run for the nomination the Republican Party in '76. But he was laughed at. They thought he was dumb then. They thought he was slow minded and dim-witted back then. They thought he couldn't speak. They thought Reagan - amazingly, a guy that later became known as the Great Communicator - couldn't speak.

We have to reinvest, I think, in the idea of articulacy as a form of personal human freedom and power.

Occasionally [Donald Trump] says things that are too strong and upsets people, and I think he'll work to do better on that.