Hilary Mantel Quotes

Anything's possible in politics.

I think to be in politics you have to have the taste for blood on that.

Politics, as an end in itself, is a poor business to be in.

I don't have to be in politics.

It is refreshing to be able to express my views without having to toe a party line. It has got me into trouble on the odd occasion, but I am not going to stop saying what I think.

I'm not in the business of politics.

Washington is politics! Somehow if people have political objectives, then those objectives are automatically disqualified? If that's the case, the Democrats have no business being legitimized about anything because everything they do is political.

Temperamentally, I am suspicious of belonging to anything. When I ran for office, I debated seriously whether or not to run as an independent because I was not eager to be saddled with the Democratic Party, because any party label is committing.

I can't get inside the head of a politician today.

But the Republican right-wing agenda, these people - Arnold and his patrons - felt it could be accomplished by circumventing the Legislature and spending money and organizing and giving sound bites.

When you enter the realm of politics, you don't enter it because you want to be popular. When I want to be popular, I pull on a guitar and sing a song.

It is more important to be a personality than a person who is in a political party.

A thinking man can never be a party man.

Occupancy of the Front Bench imposes penalties as well as privileges. Its members have to surrender some of the freedom which the back benches afford, and they have to consider much more closely whether what they do and say may help or compromise the position of the Party.. These obligations are so trying at times that men … do not care to assume them, preferring the greater freedom of the back benches. I would not personally press anyone to change back bench freedom for Front Bench reticence and circumspection, but I should like you to consider whether or not you cared to do so. If you thought that you could stand the yoke (and I have not found it too difficult) it would be a pleasure to me to tell the members of the Party that I proposed to ask you to join those who sit on the Front Bench.

Politicians have no politics.

Choose the politics of principle over the politics of personality.

I am not a Federalist because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatsoever

I know nothing, by experience, of party discipline. I would rather be a raccoon-dog, and belong to a Negro in the forest, than to belong to any party, further than to do justice to all, and to promote the interests of my country

When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.

I'm not a politician. I'm not a career politician.

I don't toe the party line all the time.

Look, politics can be tough.

I don't really regard myself as a political figure.

As I watched on TV the nest of reporters and groupies surround Palin at the Iowa State Fair, I couldn't help but sit back and wonder if she's become the ultimate party crasher for the Republican Party.

My message to women is it's okay not to toe the party line on every issue. You don't have to be a puppet or a mouthpiece for your party on every issue. You can be an independent thinker; you can take it issue by issue, and that's okay. You shouldn't be told, 'You can't sit with us.'