Donald Rumsfeld

Look for what’s missing. Many advisors can tell a President how to improve what’s proposed or what’s gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn’t there.

Success tends to go not to the person who is error-free, because he also tends to be risk-averse. Rather it goes to the person who recognizes that life is pretty much a percentage business. It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task.

Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the President and do wonders for your performance.

The Federal Government should be the last resort, not the first. Ask if a potential program is truly a federal responsibility or whether it can better be handled privately, by voluntary organizations, or by local or state governments.

Presidential leadership needn’t always cost money. Look for low- and no-cost options. They can be surprisingly effective.

Politics is human beings; it’s addition rather than subtraction.

It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.

What I try to keep in mind is that there are going to be a lot of articles that are going to be misrepresentative of what I’m about as a person and as a writer.

There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?

We want someone to bring us the news.

I think the 24-hour news cycle has helped exaggerate the differences between the parties. You can always find someone on TV somewhere carping about something. That didn’t happen 20 years ago.

We got killed in Newsweek.

One thing I’ve learned about the press is that they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better. It’s in the nature of the job, and I understand that. The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous.

You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.

I notice in some of the newspapers that they have taken a bit of an interest in me. According to one headline Jeremy Corbyn welcomed the prospect of an asteroid wiping out humanity. Asteroids are pretty controversial and it is not the kind of thing I would want to rule out… without a full debate at conference and a review so can we have the debate later in the week.

Fake news is at an all time high. Where is their apology to me for all of the incorrect stories???

I can understand the British media and why they are doing that. It does not add up to much. I’m used in my life to not paying much attention to some things.

The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.

Contrary to what a lot of people think, I don’t enjoy doing press. I’ve been asked the same questions a million times now, and I don’t particularly like talking about my personal life.

[on Megyn Kelly] You could see there was bloody coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.

I would rather have been beaten up in the media than live a life that wasn’t happy.