J. William Fulbright Quotes

There is no such thing as a nonpolitical speech by a politician.

Modern political speechwriting is certainly a skill, and one that requires experience and practice to master.

It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

No politician has ever been defeated by a speech he didn’t give.

Regan’s greatness as a rhetorician was in his delivery not in the content of what he said as with Churchill and Roosevelt.

I listened to Hillary [Clinton], and I heard the double talk. She's so good at it, and I'm not making this up, that the Communist Chinese have sent their cadres to study her speeches. They say she's the finest propagandist they've ever heard.

The language of politics is poetry, not prose. Jackson is poetry. Cuomo is poetry. Dukakis is a word processor.

I don't like jokes in speeches. I do like wit and humor. A joke is to humor what pornography is to erotic language in a good novel.

I understand what a normal political speech is. You get up there, tell a few jokes, you have the flags behind you, and you speak for 10 or 15 minutes in broad generalities.

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

Each of the participants [in a Presidential Debate] has a major objective and a minor one, in addition, of course, to appearing presidential. The major one is to get his messages across even if the questions don’t ask for them. The minor one is to avoid seeming unresponsive. That is why you will see the debaters answer some of the questions quickly, leaving time for what the candidate wants to talk about.

There is not alternative to speechwriters. You can’t run for president and write your own speeches.

Trump has a way of driving a message so people hear it.

Selling and telling are two different things. In politics, we sell ideas.

When a president speaks, it's to multiple audiences.

Barack Obama's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences.

Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.

I've been turning it over in after-dinner speeches, but it looks awkward-it's not what people are used to-it wants a good deal of Latin to make it go down.

He had a carrying, congressional sort of voice, the kind that sounded good saying things like Less of a tax burden on the middle class and Thank you for your donation and Honey, could you bring me my sweater with the duck on it?

Politics and acting are very closely tied. The job is to convince.

At the end of the day after a few speeches and a lot of campaign stops, I'm more energized than drained.

The orator puts off his individuality, and is then most eloquent when most silent. He listens while he speaks, and is a hearer along with his audience.

Among provocative, the next best thing to good preaching is bad preaching.

Lamon, that speech won't scour. It is a flat failure and the people are disappointed.

Let any man speak long enough, he will get believers.