Political Biography Quotes

It's funny how the history of Jeb Bush is going to be rewritten.

Newt Gingrich wrote a novel, and he's a short story. Bill Clinton wrote a biography, and he's a novel.

According to Kim Jong-Il's biography, they say he has been constantly accused of dishonesty, drunkenness and sexual excess. So if he lived here, he could be in Congress.

There is a new book out about Hillary Clinton that claims Bill is still having affairs but Hillary continues to look the other way. The only problem is when Hillary does look the other way Bill's having sex with a women over there too.

I was trying to learn about Lyndon Johnson when he was young and creating his first political machine in the Texas hill country. I moved there for three years. You had to learn that world.

True crime has long been a passion for me, but I'm also a sucker for biographies, particularly of politicians, writers, or Hollywood icons.

Some good souls found The Candidate cynical. I wonder what they'll think when they read this portrait of the real-life Jerry Brown... This is the book that could force the little fox into the open.

Does one ever read a politician's books?

Packed with fascinating personal perspective and testimony, Michael Takiffs A Complicated Man wholly justifies its title. The book is far more than a kaleidoscopic oral biography of President Bill Clinton. Aspect by aspect, it guides us through the struggles of postmodern America, as the most ambitious baby boomer of his generation seeks to modernize the Democratic Party-and, as in a Greek drama, is fated to be destroyed. Veritably, an all-American saga, with a cast of thousands-favorable and unfavorable.

In Sarah Palin's new book, she says when she first laid eyes on her future husband, she said out loud, 'Thank you, God,' which is the same thing the Democrats said when they first laid eyes on Sarah Palin.

When I came back to Washington to be The Times' chief congressional correspondent in 1991, I was looking for a book subject, and Ted Kennedy stood out for two reasons.

Everybody in politics writes a book and the books are dull—almost as dull as the people who wrote them.

My recurring nightmare is that someday I will be faced with a panel: Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson all of whom will be telling me everything I got wrong about them. I know that Johnson's out there saying, 'Why is it that what you wrote about the Kennedys is twice as long as the book you wrote about me?'

A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self-serving. I hope mine is interesting and self-serving.

Political biography is in the doldrums. No one wants to read 800 pages or so of cradle-to-grave dead politics, especially if it's familiar stuff and has all been written about before.

One of the more fatuous remarks I've heard in recent days is that 'My Life,' Clinton's autobiography, is too long and, at almost 1,000 pages, short it is not. But this man was for eight years the President of the most powerful country on earth.

Books by politicians paint a picture of what they want you to see, not what really happened.

In daring to re-tell the stories of the last twelve American presidents, both public and private, I knew I would incur some outrage with 'American Caesars.'

Historians sometimes view presidents very differently from the way the public did at the time. Sometimes they don't.

The Hawk and the Dove is a wonderful idea for a book, wonderfully carried out. Nicholas Thompson has used illuminating new material to present each of his protagonists in a convincing, respectful, but unsparing way. Even more valuable, he has used the interactions and tensions between Paul Nitze and George Kennan to bring much of American 20th century foreign policy to life, with human richness ever present but with the big issues clear in all their complexity.

A virtuoso performance. Scott Thompson’s biography of the soldier statesman Fidel V. Ramos illustrates the fascinating and complex geography of Filipino politics and its relation with the American hegemon. It’s first-rate scholarship and equally first-rate writing.

It was my intent all along to write a nonjudgmental narrative of Bush's presidency. Along the way, a number of liberal friends of mine expressed disgust that I would spend time on such an endeavor.

In our day, major-generals and governors, and even presidential candidates, have taken to the writing of history, and the historical scholar has the opportunity of reviewing them.