Lawrence O'Donnell

“There's something about the power of influential correspondents tweeting something that has become the fastest way to get a story moving. It will turn into something much faster and much bigger than it would have.”

“I don't trust news sources, and neither should other people. They should use them in the same way that they use medical opinions and get more than one on the important issues. Trust is the most precious thing you could possibly give to another person. But to institutions? Publications?”

“Nothing outrages and disappoints an extremist more than compromise.”

“There are people who hate me, there are people who like me, and they're both right. I think people hate me for the right reasons, which is my politics and what they discern to be my personal attitudes.”

“Political talk on TV has degenerated so much. You can say something complex on 'The West Wing' and you will not suffer a screaming interruption by three other panelists.”

“The United States is and will continue to be the most important country in the world, economically, militarily, intellectually. There's nothing that four years of Trump can do to stop that. What it is no longer, during the Trump years, is the leading source for better governmental arrangements between countries.”

“What MSNBC is, what cable news prime time has become in the shows that get the ratings, is the oped page of the newspaper.”

“America never formally surrenders, so we have to call surrender something else. In Vietnam, we called it Vietnamization.”

“Roger Ailes's effect on politics was much longer-lasting than Richard Nixon's, even though Nixon was elected president twice.”

“I never like the TV or movie Harvard characters. The fact of the matter is that most people who go to Harvard went to public schools and weren't in final clubs. I didn't even know that final clubs existed until I was a senior.”

“Liberals amuse me. I am a socialist.”

“There's times where you can watch television and say, 'Look at that cheesy thing they're doing for ratings,' and you're right.”

“If a website has something I should know, somebody is spinning it around Twitter and I'll see it there. Before I would look at Huffington Post and Slate every day, now I follow them on Twitter.”

“I have no broadcasting training. No one's ever said to me, 'This is how you read a Teleprompter.' They just pointed to it and said, 'It's over there.'”

“I majored in economics in college. Certain things were just out, like chemistry or biology, or science or math, that was just out of the question. That's just an aptitude impossibility, I couldn't have done it.”

“The Republican base - the Evangelical get-out-the-vote troops - are going to be devastated when they discover how many closeted gay Republicans were involved in policing Mark Foley in the House of Representatives.”

“There are plenty of odd couple Congressmen who have roomed together on Capitol Hill, but I have never heard of a chief of staff who rooms with his boss. It is beyond unusual.”

“I discovered, to my surprise, that writing for live television made me a faster writer.”

“What we're doing on 'The West Wing' is fictional. It's not a place to learn about politics or government. Has there ever been a fundraiser on 'The West Wing?' No. So right there, you're in Disneyland.”

“I've often wondered what it would have been like if we'd had cable news during the Vietnam War and Watergate.”