Mark Steyn Quotes

Washington DC is a city of motion, not action.

A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.

Joint committees are heat generators rather than light producers.

I pass my days in a state of exasperation. First, with the fools who do not want any of the things that ought to be done, and second, with the equally obnoxious fools who insist upon so much that they cannot get anything done.

Problems always appear big when incompetent men are working on them.

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

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

A committee is a group of the unprepared, appointed by the unwilling to do the unnecessary.

If you see a snake, just kill it - don't appoint a committee on snakes.

Common sense is not all that common in Washington DC.

I'm a pretty good problem solver.

I thought I was going to go into politics, but that became disheartening. You see that a lot of stuff doesn't get done, people walk around all self-important, and it's just depressing.

Washington isn't utterly dysfunctional.

I don't have time to distinguish between the unfortunate and the incompetent.

It's hard not to get down on the government when you see dysfunction play out on our TVs every day. Frankly, sometimes at every level of government.

Serving in Congress is like having a second shot at high school.

Those that can, do. Those that can't, complain.

Sloths move at the speed of congressional debate but with greater deliberation and less noise.

Americans don't like the way Washington operates. They don't like Washington. They don't like the way things are going.

Of all the human qualities, the one I admire the most is competence. A tailor who is really able to cut and fit a coat seems to me an admirable man, and by the same token a university professor who knows little or nothing of the thing he presumes to teach seems to me to be a fraud and a rascal.

Anderson isn't qualified to make Frank Mir a sandwich

Outside of traffic, there is nothing that has held this country back as much as committees.

The differences between a competent person and an incompetent person are demonstrated in his environment (surroundings).

The wrong thing to do about any given circumstance or situation is to do nothing.

The question nowadays is not what makes government work. The question is how do we make it stop.