Tim Watts

“For all its faults, our political process is a good one, and the means by which much meaningful change is made. That is not a very fashionable view to hold, but as someone who has operated at senior levels in journalism and politics, around a decade in each, it is my respect for the media that has shrunk, and my respect for politics that has grown.”
― Alastair Campbell, The Blair Years: The Alastair Campbell Diaries

“I think the knowledge came to him at last — only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude — and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating.

Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn’t touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror — of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, — he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath — ‘The horror! The horror!”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“It is all about how the party sees them as they strut around the conference, and got fuck all to do with whether we ever actually get the power needed to do anything for the country.”
― Alastair Campbell, The Blair Years: The Alastair Campbell Diaries

“The thought of the president trying to concentrate on his delivery as gobbledygook whirred by his eyes made me sick with worry — for him and me. This screwup might not have been my fault, but it was my responsibility. ‘This is the worst thing that’s ever happened,’ I muttered. ‘I dunno,’ replied Mike Feldman, the vice president’s aide, ‘the Holocaust was pretty bad.’ Very funny.”
― George Stephanopoulos, All Too Human