David Frum

A novel makes it possible to understand not just events, but the people who control the events; not only their choices, but also their motives.

The cruel always believe the kind are weak. But human decency and goodness can also move human affairs.

What I say is I am somebody who cares about conservative ideas. I want to see them implemented in governance.

If you go on TV and say there's no other country in the world where you can be born poor and become rich, you get a huge megaphone. If you tell the truth, which is that most of the studies show actually the United States is worse than anybody except Britain in upward mobility, there is no audience for you.

Nobody ever won an election by spitting at his political opponents.

Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox.

The great power the president has is that he is the most prominent person in the biggest media event on the planet. He has the attention of the nation and the world. When he speaks, everybody listens.

Journalism can go right up to the door of the room in which the decisions are made. A novel can go inside the room - and inside the character's heads.

As thrilling as it was, speechwriting is ultimately frustrating for someone who wants to be a writer.

A presidential speech is always the work of many hands.

To balance China, the democracies will need new friends - and India with its fast-growing economy, youthful population, and democratic politics seems the obvious candidate.

A generation ago, or two, when there were three channels, plus PBS, and when you needed - when you needed 15 million people to make a living, the media could focus on the broad country. And most people had no choice about getting political information. It was there at 6:30 whether you wanted it or not.

I am really and truly frightened by the collapse of support for the Republican Party by the young and the educated.

Think tanks do have points of view, and they are absolutely entitled to defend them.

So if I have two pieces of cake, do I have twice as good an experience as the first piece of cake? One of the things I've found in life is that the first piece of cake is the best.

The elite isn't leading anymore. It's trapped.

I'm a latecomer to the environmental issue, which for years seemed to me like an excuse for more government regulation. But I can see that in rich societies, voters are paying less attention to economic issues and more to issues of the spirit, including the environment.

There are a lot of wonderful people in America who shouldn't be on the Supreme Court - and a lot who should be on the court who aren't such wonderful people.

The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party.

We, as conservative intellectuals, should not be in the business of making excuses for bad parliamentary decisions by Republican leaders in Congress.

My mother cared more about how you reasoned than about the conclusions you reached.

Maybe it's true that people with less extreme views who are also interested in public affairs have been driven out by a marketplace that doesn't offer them anything of the tone they want to listen to.

I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words.

In journalism I can only tell what happened. In fiction, I can show it.

There is no right to work in a think tank, and these are very privileged positions.

So if I have two pieces of cake do I have twice as good an experience as the first piece of cake One of the things Ive found in life is that the first piece of cake is the best.

Why should we not expect self-designated environmental leaders to practice what they preach?

The big winners under the American fiscal system are the rich, who pay some of the lowest taxes anywhere in the world; the old, who are the main beneficiaries of the American social service state; farmers, rural people. These are Republican constituencies.

My mom was truly an iconic figure, a great journalist and a pioneering woman who died at 54 of cancer without ever having revealed to viewers that she was ill.