If you want to learn a culture, you have to learn how to like what it likes, rather than go looking for something that you like. - John Barnes

I know I pretend to be the apolitical businessman a lot, but the reality is that like anybody who’s interested in getting people together with the things they need and want, I have an agenda. I want people to get what they want, and I want them ideally to get it from me, but most of all I want them to be free to want it and to make offers to get it. Those poor stupid fanatics have been sold on the idea that what they want is the ability to give themselves little priggish congratulations over having done the right thing. They’d rather be right than happy. More importantly, they’d rather that I be right than happy and they’re not about to leave the choice up to me. I say, let ’em die, and I hope it’s slow and it hurts.

He wonders if there is some requirement that you have to be an idiot to be a politician.

The only thing Carla has ever learned to like about dealing with power is how easy it is to embarrass people who have it.