John Dickerson

“A number of Donald Trump's supporters told me during the campaign they had faith that he would be a good president because he would be helped by the experts around him. But the president's improvisation saps experts of their key skill: pattern recognition.”

“The math of durability in McCain's life is extraordinary.”

“Politics is not the nicest business, but there are still times when people do the right thing.”

“During the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton ran a blunt television ad asking whether Barack Obama could handle a foreign policy crisis.”

“When I was first asked to be on 'Washington Week', I never prepared more for an appearance.”

“Claims of a decisive 'turning point' in any election are often overblown - more often, such a moment merely crystallizes a change that's been days or weeks in the making. But you can make a real case that Obama's Jefferson-Jackson Day speech is a pivot point in America history.”

“To be the windowpane - this is basically a bastardization of what Orwell said about good writing - so you can get the conversation going and frame it the right way and make sure people aren't lost. And then you let the candidates illuminate the issues themselves.”

“Every president makes the Oval Office theirs.”

“My children are vampires. I don't mean that they are going to dress as vampires for Halloween. I mean that, like vampires, they cannot be captured on film.”

“Things were so unpredictable in Comey's first meeting with President-elect Trump, the former FBI director immediately took notes in his car after the interaction.”

“Mr. Obama said that he personally told Mr. Putin to knock it off and vows to retaliate. But the Obama presidency is coming to an end, and his successor still won't accept that Russia is guilty of tampering with U.S. elections.”

“For Hillary Clinton, Iowa was a tough state for her in 2008, and she's put a lot of effort into fixing those mistakes.”

“When the news broke that John McCain had been diagnosed with brain cancer, the outpouring of well wishes all hailed his toughness.”

“There is no human-resources training for how to respond when you work for an unpredictable president. It's perhaps fitting that when you visit the website of the White House Office of Administration it says, 'Check back soon for more information.'”

“When she died, Mom left me her letters and journals. Windows into things I would have been too young to understand when she was alive, or too busy, or too much of a know-it-all.”

“Presidents have to learn how to adapt. Every president comes into the job; it's different than they expect. They must adapt.”

“There's the human side of people who are in public life that connects people. Whether it's favorable or unfavorable, it gives them some connection with the person who's onstage, and I think those connections are edifying.”

“One of the worries about a presidency is that everybody tells you yes. Nobody helps you figure out where your blind spots are.”

“The house was big enough for my brother and me to have firecracker wars at one end and leave Mom and Dad undisturbed at the other. When firecrackers weren't available, we attacked each other with pennies and marbles and clumps of Crisco, which made brilliant greasy asterisks when you missed and hit the wall.”

“Michael Flynn was forced to resign, we are told, because he told a big lie. But what about the little ones?”