I'm always nervous about going home, just as I am nervous about rereading books that have meant a lot to me.
I always keep my repertorial hat on.
To cover politics in Washington allows you to live in the very, very wide gap between what the actual truth is, and how people are trying to manipulate the truth. They speak in the language of spin, obsequiousness, obfuscation. The meta of politics is just this endless source of material that can shed light on the psychology of the process.
I think that part of being a good journalist, part of being an awake member of the world youre in, is to view yourself as an outsider, and I always have, to some degree.
Media has changed dramatically, as you and I know. We're in a world now where you're rewarded for being outrageous. Punditry has replaced reporting as the gold standard of journalism.
Washington has always had a pretty healthy amount of self-loathing.
But 'This Town' is official Washington. It's political Washington. It's not the Washington that clogs New York Avenue. It's not the Washington that lives in Gaithersburg. It's not the Washington that accounts for most of the population. 'This Town' refers to the people who think they run your country.
And a united Europe will also manage to send hundreds of thousands of migrants, who don't have the right to asylum, back to their homelands. Though that, given the number of flights necessary, would be of a scale reminiscent of the Berlin Airlift.
Before receiving your instruction, I must tell you what happened to me one day. I had just had a closet built at the end of my garden. I heard a mole arguing with a cockchafer; 'Here's a fine structure,' said the mole, 'it must have been a very powerful mole who did this work. ' 'You're joking,' said the cockchafer; 'it's a cockchafer full of genius who is the architect of this building. ' From that moment I resolved never to argue.
It is willingness of people to give of themselves over and above the demands of the job that distinguishes the great from the merely adequate.
Having reached the halfway mark in the alphabet, my prime focus is on writing each new book as well as I can.