Len Deighton Quotes

The ship of state is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.

I understand firsthand that Washington is broken.

I like organised things. I don't like the corruption and slowness of Greece.

I think there is a lot of fat in the government.

I had rapidly become aware there were problems with the Kalifa group.

Politics is the only field in which the more experience you have, the worse you get.

I'm knocking our pitiful, pathetic lawmakers.

Whenever you're faced with an explanation of what's going on in Washington, the choice between incompetence and conspiracy, always choose incompetence.

Government is dysfunctional.

Category after category, Barack Obama hasn't met the promises that he laid out to the American people.

New York State is upside down and backwards; high taxes and low performance. The New York State government was at one time a national model. Now, unfortunately, it's a national disgrace. Sometimes, the corruption in Albany could even make Boss Tweed blush.

A government is the only vessel that leaks from the top.

Things happened there that I don't think are the finest hours for anybody, whether it was a journalist, the legal system or, in that case of the political system, who would say that was an example of when Washington worked best.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

If we permit ourselves to be ill served, to be served by corrupt and incompetent and inefficient men, then on our own head must the blame rest.

Nothing in Chicago seems to be working the way it’s supposed to.

Some governments are corrupt but are known for their competency in running the city. Others are incompetent but are considered "clean." [Washington] DC's government is scandalously corrupt and hopelessly incompetent.

I never will ascribe to this government [Liberal Party] such wrongdoing as mere stupidity will explain.

I cannot consent to act the part of a mere financier, to become a contriver of taxes, a dealer of loans, a seeker of resources for the purposes of supporting useless baubles, of increasing the number of idle and dissipated members of the community, of fattening contractors, pursers, and agents, and of introducing … patronage, corruption, and rottenness which you so justly execrate.

By all means, make him [Democrat General Lewis Cass] President, gentlemen. He will feed you bounteously – if there is any left after he has helped himself.

Parliamentarianism is nauseating to anyone who has ever seen it at close range.

Show me a supposedly 'unfixable' problem in Washington, and I'll show you the political corruption standing in the way.

In Washington, you have imaginary problems, and they can't even solve the imaginary problems.

I have no illusions about our elected politicians. Pakistani democracy is anything but perfect.

Government screws up.