Meg Greenfield Quotes

I want to get people thinking.

Comparing and contrasting is a valuable human skill - and not just during high school English exams. Our ability to rank-order things is invaluable in making choices and setting priorities.

For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.

I'm a thinker.

A fact: one picks it up and reads it, and puts it down, and there is an end to it. But an idea! That one may pick up, and reflect upon, and oppose, and expand, and so pass a delightful afternoon altogether.

Hypothetical questions are good because they're usually on the mark.

We are a fiercely argumentative lot.

I lead my party. He [John Major] follows his.

To think critically is always to be hostile.

There are truths to be discovered, but they are complex and many-sided; the best way to get to them is by engaging contrary ideas in a manner approximating dialogue.

Analysis I take to be a scientific procedure. What I do is creative. It doesn't spring from the same part of the mind.

I have to challenge the audience.

Most people don't grab the right ideas or don't know what to do with them.

I always like to think on a problem before reading about it.

I love to argue. I've always loved to argue. And I love to point out the weaknesses of the opposing arguments. It may well be that I'm something of a shin kicker. It may well be that I'm something of a contrarian.

Savage people realize their aims through fighting, through conflict. Cultivated and intellectual souls believe that they will attain their aims through thought and discussion.

I tend to solicit opinions from all those around me. I like to hear opinions and the rationale behind it from everybody in the room. Perhaps it's the result of going to law school and using the Socratic method.

We find that the more you talk about it, the more you head off any spontaneous inspiration that might happen.

I don't have all the answers. I'm just supposed to present what I think is an issue and have dialogue start.

Eighty percent of my job is to ask the question, 'If this were real, what would it look like?'

Writing is investigation.

Part of the job involves thinking about things and eliminating them. You spend a lot of time coming up with ideas that are terrible and hating them and hating yourself.

Conflicting views and contrasting ideas are the essence of all great debates throughout history, from the Greeks to the Oxford Union Debating Society. Today, we turn to television for the creative clash of ideas on matters that touch our lives.

I give people ideas on how to solve intractable problems.

Be a student, not a follower. Take interest in what someone says, then debate it, ponder it, and consider it from all angles.