Beau Willimon Quotes & Sayings

“The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality.”

“A lot of people have asked me whether I am a cynic or take a cynical view of politics and are often surprised when I say that I consider myself an optimist, but an optimist dressed in the robes of a realist.”

“I refuse to buy a PS3 or Xbox for my home for fear that it might ruin my life. I think I would cease to accomplish anything productive, would quickly dispense with all human contact, and would very well end up with a nasty case of arthritis in my over-used digits from constant gameplay.”

“I don't desire happiness. I think it's a myth, and I don't think it's... and it makes you complacent. I feel very satisfyingly uncomfortable. I have the freedom to feel uncomfortable in the way I want to, is maybe a way to put it.”

“At home I mostly stick to online Scrabble, or chess or Risk - games I find far less addictive than the spectacular games created for consoles these days. But, whenever I get the chance, I head over to my friend Kyri's house to play his PS3.”

“Tales of power and ambition and intrigue and betrayal and desire - when you're telling those in a big way, you automatically want to go to Shakespeare.”

“When you have both parties who will not find ways to compromise, who won't meet in the middle, you have paralysis. It's the perversion of idealism.”

“Like any young person who gets into a political campaign, I joined out of a highfalutin' desire to change the world. But you start to see the sort of tactics people use. You start to see politics not only in the macro but in the micro of the campaign itself. Some people get turned off by this side of it. Other people are drawn to it.”

“I think, people who remain in the political sphere as opposed to going into the private sector, really what they're looking at is how in some ways the compensation is power. How do you place a price tag on the ability to affect millions of people's lives? How do you place a price tag on the ability to determine the rules by which all of us play?”

“Is self-interest a bad thing? We want our leaders to be pure and good, but at the same time we want them to be effective, and to be effective you often have to be ruthless and not bound by ideology or the same morals that we pretend to hold ourselves to.”