Richard Powers Quotes

Even if we don't know it or aren't aware of it, politics and philosophy are really what make our up lives.

There are aspects of '24' where I love its politics and aspects where I hate them.

Journalism is concerned with events, poetry with feelings. Journalism is concerned with the look of the world, poetry with the feel of the world.

The politics of character tend to drive out the politics of substance.

Nothing is more fallacious than to expect to produce any valuable or permanent results in political projects by relying merely on the reason of men. Men are ... for the most part governed by the impulses of passion.

We're humans. Why always turn human attitude into political behaviours? I hate that.

Sometimes I feel that I'm living in a political era in which what I value most, character, is endangered; what I admire most, humanity, is devalued; and what I feel most sensitive about, privacy, is denied.

Truths! Do you think I could have created a government … with truths? You make history with ambition, not with truths.

A good deal of our politics is psychological.

Good ends can rarely be attained in politics without passion.

There are pragmatic, sane politics or those convinced that God is on their side.

Are not Religion & Politics the Same Thing?

Philosophy is no more a barrier against political disaster than it is against plague.

At the heart of any drama, there's conflict. When you are acting, you get to play out the confrontations you want to have in real life but can't. Or the emotions that you would want to have in real life, but sometimes they are too difficult.

The person you're playing must have feelings, but if he's not able to show them, then just the subtlest rumblings and nuances can say an incredible amount.

A novel, I think, is partly about the contemporary and partly about the eternal, and it's the balance of that that's difficult to achieve.

As a storyteller, when you see somebody who is the character you envisioned, you feel this energy in the room.

My father claimed no political affiliation. He supported Al Gore because he knew him as a human being. He supported Lamar Alexander, who was the governor of Tennessee, who was a Republican. It was based on the individual. He didn't believe in politics. He based his support for someone on their heart and their integrity.

Sometimes, you want to write how you feel, but making people have fun, that's part of it, too.

It's like how science fiction in the '50s was a way of talking about war without actually having to risk any political capital. The obvious metaphor is power and powerlessness, but I also think it's a way of experimenting with dangerous feelings in a safe arena and trying things out.

Short stories and poems are an intense burst of emotions.

I think as an actor, you have to make yourself vulnerable to emotions.

I think there is a difference between connecting with a character and supporting and believing their policies.

Politics lives in people, ideas live in people, they live in the concrete struggles that people have.

I write about my feelings, things that happen in my life and experiences.