Political Storytelling Quotes

What's gratifying about West Wing is that everybody told us that it couldn't be done - that the man or woman on the street didn't care about politics. But if you set things up correctly, people don't have a problem with it.

Have you noticed how the Republicans and Democrats try to copy each other at their conventions. Like at the Democratic convention John Kerry's daughter told a story about how he once gave CPR to her hamster. At the Republican convention the Bush girls are going to tell a story about how when their hamster was bad, their dad built them a little electric chair.

The script was given to me by one of my agents and they didn't tell me anything about it. My first reaction was, "The West Wing? Is it about a squadron of fighter jets?" Then I turned the page and saw, 'by Aaron Sorkin' and I knew it was going to be something good.

I wanted to do a political film that is as nonpartisan as can be, because I wanted to do a story that was American. I wanted to tell an American tragedy.

As a generalization, fantasy writing has leaned more on political storytelling the more it's tried to escape the inevitable influence of Middle-earth, and revise the Eurocentric and Christian tropes that Tolkien's particular worldview bequeathed.

WORK ON YOUR STORY! He/she who has the best story wins! In life! In business! The White House!

It seems that's where Bill Clinton came in last night because he told this long story about how they met [with Hillary Clinton], how he courted her, how he bought a house to convince her, I think after the third proposal, to actually marry him. And he talked about her activism and her commitment and everything. And it was as if he could tell the narrative in a way that she couldn't.

It has not been the style of Canadian politicians to write of their experiences, although it is the common practice for British, French, and American Politicians upon their retirement. But I have been criticized before and I expect to be again.

Right now I am working on something that's pretty important to me. It has to do with my own history in politics. I'd done All the President's Men, and the history of how that came about is a story unto itself. It began with The Candidate. No one knows about that connection. I was on a train, and I was promoting The Candidate going from Jacksonville, Florida, down to Miami to duplicate what candidates in 1972 did.

In politics, it's very theatrical. There's a lot of stage craft. The campaign is trying to tell a story that they want people to believe in, and candidates are playing the role, like actors, by a creative personae that people will be attracted to.

Many candidates use a political autobiography to sell their candidacy.

Now, I'm a failed political consultant. But sometimes fiction has a way of capturing people's imagination in a way that non-fiction doesn't. Conservatives typically haven't written much fiction - specifically political thrillers - over the years to educate, inspire and mobilize people on issues of great import, but we ought to.

Television today is the stage on which the drama of politics is played out.

The media traditionally is simply an arm of the Democrat Party that is used in service of advancing the Democrat Party agenda, and the Republicans haven't come up with a way of having a more engaging, entertaining story because the Republican story is never anything other than, "We don't want Democrat X to have what he wants."

Fiction is truth. I think fiction is the truest thing there ever was. My whole effort is to remove that distinction. The writer is the midwife of understanding. It's very important for me to tell politics like a story, to make it real.

I spoke to a blogger. It was election time when we were doing the movie and Hillary Clinton was still in the running. This blogger was doing a story on democratic women who were anti-Hillary. He was on the computer speaking to these women and it made me realize that you can reach a much broader audience online but on the other hand Russell's [Crowe] character argues that you still need to get on the streets and see people face to face, and check your facts.

Politics boils down to the stories we tell ourselves. And unfortunately, we tell ourselves different stories.

Politics should be, you know, as exciting as literature, as exciting film.

One of the reasons that politics lets us down is that we keep comparing it to our ideal narratives, to politics on TV or in the movies, which is tidier and better fits such structures.

It's always interesting to me to tell stories that come from difficult political climates.