George J. Mitchell Quotes

Managing the House of Representatives is like herding cats.

The Middle East is a very difficult stage to play upon. Without doubt, it is a good drama. And on occasion, there are situations so unimaginable, if not ludicrous, as to make them almost comic. But the cast is constantly changing, the audience is often disengaged, and it seems at times that no one is actually running the show.

The Middle East is a region where predictions go to die.

I think daily that the country's future is being thrown to the wind.

Washington is unpredictable these days.

Recalling our history which has been characterized by political and constitutional instability …

The Middle East is so constructed that the rational things are the things least likely to occur.

Our government is a little more chaotic than most other governments in the world.

Politics is pretty much an up and down business

Simply eight young men … standing amidst the ruins of one administration with the foundation of another not yet laid …. No police were functioning through the country, no system of justice was operating, the wheels of the administration hung idle, battered out of recognition by the clash of rival jurisdictions.

Washington is broken but America still works.

Crises there will continue to be ... Threats of new kinds will always appear.

You see the problem of an unstable White House from the outside and worry about it. But from the inside, it is 50 times worse.

Certainty in politics is never a given.

I don't like this kind of life where every month you are faced with some kind of a coup.

Life is not easy in politics.

Well you know it's dangerous in politics, because especially in the Philippines there's a lot of killing in politics.

Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away.

It is the future, of course, which politicians grapple with, and that is why politics is so disorderly. Only history clears away some of the debris.

The one thing we can all be sure about in politics is you are as well to expect the unexpected.

I love discomfort. I mean, my whole life is discomfort. One reason I can never retire is that the idea of just sitting on the beach totally comfortable is not a desideratum in my life. I like ambiguity, I like conflict, I like uncertainly.

I think it's almost impossible for any expert to predict for the rapid changes we see in the Middle East. They are rapid and they will continue for quite a while.

One of the things that has been very difficult in Libya is the sense of uncertainty - the sense that they haven't actually finished the revolution, that there was still a great deal of uncertainty. That uncertainty has made Libya harder for business in terms of oil and other things as well.

You never know what'll happen in politics.

It's a volatile time.