Top 43 Mark Leibovich Quotes
#1. a sinner is pleading to Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates: "Wait, those weren't lies," the sinner says. "That was spin!
Mark Leibovich
#2. There is an expression here on Capitol Hill," Issa told me. "'Don't ever get between a member and a camera.'" That can be particularly harrowing in the case of Issa, who had purchased a T-shirt for Bardella that said: "It's all about me.
Mark Leibovich
#3. I'm just a journalist. I shine a mirror to the culture. I give the cop-out answer.
Mark Leibovich
#4. I think the job of a good journalist, especially in Washington, is to create discomfort, and I think for a certain class of people, and for whom life is quite comfortable, I've created discomfort. So I take that as a badge of honor.
Mark Leibovich
#5. Washington read": the act of telling someone, "I didn't read your book but did praise it on TV.")
Mark Leibovich
#6. Cynicism is idealism turned inside out. It stems from an expectation unrealized and a promise perverted. That is so much of Washington today in a nutshell.
Mark Leibovich
#7. I work for a big newspaper, and I guess I'm an insider. I don't have the luxury of calling myself a foreign correspondent and just swooping in and then leaving.
Mark Leibovich
#8. I'm sure people are badmouthing me. I think one of the interesting parts about the criticism has been the tenor of "how dare he." How dare an insider speak critically about other insiders?
Mark Leibovich
#9. You know you've made it in D.C. when someone says that--"It isn't clear what he does"--about you.
Mark Leibovich
#10. If you look at issues like immigration, gay marriage, gun regulation - these are all things that probably wouldn't be a source of much discussion at all in D.C., if they weren't sources of self-perpetuation.
Mark Leibovich
#11. I don't know if it's because my father's from Argentina, that I'm the son of an immigrant, I don't know if its because I'm Jewish, but I have always been mindful that the best insights occur when you have some kind of an outsider perspective.
Mark Leibovich
#12. Many of us become walking self-caricatures at a certain point, and politicians can be particularly vulnerable, especially those who have maneuvered their very public lives as conspicuously as McCain. They tell and retell the same stories; things get musty. They engage in a lot of self-mythologizing,
Mark Leibovich
#13. Everyone marveled--between courses at The Palm--at how out of touch Mittens was.
Mark Leibovich
#14. No benign deity plucks television news show hosts from their desks in the prime of life and then hastily compensates their friends and family by displays of irradiated droplets in the sky.
Mark Leibovich
#15. Spirituality in Washington can be more of a - I don't want to say it - but, a networking opportunity. Religion is often used opportunistically in the political conversation.
Mark Leibovich
#16. Tim Russert is dead. But the room was alive. You can't work it too hard at a memorial service, obviously. It's the kind of thing people notice.
Mark Leibovich
#17. When you live in Washington, D.C., you do get a sense, in a very direct way, of the durability of our government and really, the greatness of the American system.
Mark Leibovich
#18. I think that part of being a good journalist, part of being an awake member of the world you're in, is to view yourself as an outsider, and I always have, to some degree.
Mark Leibovich
#19. I have been a print reporter my whole career. It's all I ever wanted to be. I specialize in political profiles. I have probably profiled hundreds of people over the years, people in very powerful positions. People don't always like what I write, but most people still talk to me.
Mark Leibovich
#20. Rail attendants dismiss excited train hobbyists as "foamers" (foaming at the mouth as they board their choo-choos).
Mark Leibovich
#21. The founding fathers, whose infinite wisdom gave us a Constitution and form of government well nigh perfect, located the seat of that government in a stinking, steaming swamp.
Mark Leibovich
#22. I violated, apparently, an unspoken rule that we are supposed to take care of our own. Frankly, if that invites discomfort, I welcome it. I don't think there's enough discomfort in journalism, especially in Washington.
Mark Leibovich
#23. If you can sell yourself as someone who knows how Washington works, someone who has these relationships, that's a very marketable commodity. If you're seen as someone who knows how this town works, someone who is a usual suspect in this town, you can dine out for years - that's why no one leaves.
Mark Leibovich
#24. I always prided myself on being apart from the ruling class. I think it's always important, not just in Washington but in life, to be able to able to balance your sense of belonging with what it's like to be someone who doesn't belong.
Mark Leibovich
#25. The shaming of Washington, insofar as it is even possible, is a very noble pursuit.
Mark Leibovich
#26. I like to be read. That's most of what any writer could want.
Mark Leibovich
#27. Washington has become this place that people don't leave. It has become this permanent feudal class.
Mark Leibovich
#28. a mantra she attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: women in politics, she said, "need to develop skin as tough as a rhinoceros hide.
Mark Leibovich
#29. I have always been a big meta guy because I think the way journalism is practiced in Washington, and the way everyone sort of cohabitates in the same fishbowl is ultimately a bigger part of the story than people outside of the fishbowl really know.
Mark Leibovich
#30. There's something called the 'Washington Read,' which is the habit of many locals to go into a bookstore, pull a book off the shelf, rifle through the index to see if they're in there.
Mark Leibovich
#31. I think as long as you're straight with people, as long as you honor ground rules, as long as you serve your readers, you're going to get the door opened for you.
Mark Leibovich
#32. The Founding Fathers are always spinning in their graves over something, as is Ronald Reagan, or FDR. Edward R. Murrow is a perennial grave spinner in the news business (though in fact, Murrow was cremated).
Mark Leibovich
#33. Washington has always had a pretty healthy amount of self-loathing.
Mark Leibovich
#34. Politicians, in many cases - their moral code will be dictated by what can get them reelected, what they can get away with. When you're out of office, I guess you're freed from those checks and balances.
Mark Leibovich
#35. The American system is a beautiful and durable thing, but flawed. I would like to think that this decadence is not sustainable, whether in the eyes of the electorate or the eyes of whatever the local economy is built on; that would bring me hope.
Mark Leibovich
#37. 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.
Mark Leibovich
#38. The people who are doing really well and who are getting stopped in airports are the people who are going to say the more outrageous things and get on TV and state their opinion on a regular basis.
Mark Leibovich
#39. The life cycle of public disgrace has been condensed to where the actual offense gets washed away, leaving just a neutral sheen of notoriety.
Mark Leibovich
#40. I've done a lot of tough stories over the years. I've done a lot of profiles over the years that have not always been, shall we say, helpful for the person who is being written about.
Mark Leibovich
#41. the capital commandments of self-interest, self-importance, self-enrichment, and self-perpetuation.
Mark Leibovich
#42. I've always tried to walk a line between being incisive and acerbic, but not mean. Sometimes I'm going to tip over the line a little bit, but that's usually a line I try not to cross.
Mark Leibovich
#43. The president's stump speeches could carry the forced air of a Van Halen reunion tour with Sammy Hagar in for David Lee Roth.
Mark Leibovich
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