David Brooks Quotes

I have seen [Betsy DeVos] present a few times. I don't really know her. But I have seen her present on education policy, and she's not a stupid person.

The reason the Betsy DeVos case was the centerpiece case for the Democrats wasn't about her weakness as a knowledgeable person on education policy.

On the [Betsy] DeVos case, I agree that the gun - her gun position is kind of weird, kind of crazy, but I do think she does know about public schools.

On the [Andrew] Puzder point, I do agree there has been a double standard.

I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of judges overruling presidents on national security matters.

On the larger issue of the travel ban, our friend Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post I think put it pretty well. I'm not sure it's illegal, but it's extremely stupid.

Republicans are living in a hermetically sealed Republican universe, just as Democrats are. And so they're responding to their own universe, even if it leads to electoral downfall.

Donald Trump's world view is that it's a dangerous, miserable place, people are out to get him, and he needs to strike them first.

It's part of Donald Trump's psychodynamics to always care about his press coverage intensely. He's more interested in that than anything else.

I generally think debates within a party should not be treated as a scandal. They should be treated as a sign of strength, to be honest.

Trade has suddenly become massively unpopular. I think that's massively unjust. I think free trade has been wonderful for America on balance.

I think actually in any party it's a sign of general health to have different views, and especially on the subject of trade.

I would have swapped out Donald Trump's frontal cortex for somebody else's for a little more self-control.

The more attention Hillary Clinton gives to the country, the less people seem to like her.

When you talk about the problem of illegal immigration, people are angry and polarized. When you talk about the answers, the debate gets a little different.

I take a benign view of digital connectedness. I notice in most young people's lives, Facebook and such doesn't replace normal dating or hanging out, it just facilitates it.

Often, I go and see films where I can see the beats coming. So, if I read something where I don't see the beats coming and it takes me somewhere unexpected, that's a great thing to build upon.

I'm not the most emotionally attuned guy in the world. My wife says that me writing about emotion is like Gandhi writing about gluttony.

Since 2005, a majority of Americans, according to the Gallup poll, have said it was wrong and a mistake to go into Iraq.

Trade agreements are a net benefit for the world, and a net benefit for our foreign policy, and in the long run, given the dislocations, are a net benefit for us, too.

I do think British and American politics rhyme. They go in cycles. They go in Thatcher-Reagan cycles, Blair-Clinton cycles.

The natural human reaction is to greet hatred with hatred, revenge by revenge. That's the natural genetic reaction.

That is the job of the Catholic Church, to be a balance to the materialistic drives of our culture and of economy.

One of the things capitalism does is, it does enhance and exacerbate the sin of pride, making yourself, the material world the center of your universe, instead of God's will.

We are all fundamentally equal souls, and if you make a zillion dollars, you're not any better than anybody else spiritually. You're still an equal soul.

If you do something really cognitively demanding, like buying furniture, it turns out buying furniture is one of the most difficult things we do. Go into a furniture store and look at a sofa.

People tend to marry people with similar-width noses, eyes similarly apart, with complementary immune systems.

The brain writes the autobiography of our species at the conscious level.

It's impossible for one person to think of everything.

I want to make big films. That's always been my ambition.

I want to try to make big films that hopefully connect with people.

I was really fortunate that I went to a high school where we actually had a film theory program.

As a director, I like trying to unlock the subtext of the scene and try to put the camera in a place that helps that.

I'm not a kicker and a screamer.

It's a completely irrational decision to drop out of school.

We have the choice to choose how we're going to educate our emotions.

President Obama was the first president not to abide by the limits in the general election.

If you know that most processing is below the level of awareness, you learn the value of sleep. You're brain is working on the problem anyway.

The drugs are just growing all around the country, and so, it all feeds into problems that are not just urban, but are just spread throughout the country.

I think the presidency is a bad way to measure the effective campaign finance, because in the presidency, there is so much publicity, there's so much money floating around.

If you grow up in a home where actions don't lead to predictable consequences, you don't develop strategies to control your impulses.

I'm a pundit. I'm, like, paid to be a narcissistic blowhard and be in front of the camera.

I'm thankful that we live in a crassly commercial, polarized culture, so media jackals like me have a lot of work to do.

If I had to fault President [Barack] Obama, I would say that sometimes governs like a visitor from a morally superior civilization.

When your institution is under assault, you're feeling like the weight is on it and the history might be flowing away, don't turn inward, go outward.

When you're running for president you have to take some risks and you've got to show people something fresh and you've got to stay interesting.

Politics really is a team sport. You really have to work the whole system to get somewhere down the road.

Clearly, politics is a team sport. Trump is not so much of a team player.

I do think creating an open free-trade economy but with strong social support is the way to go.

I think Romney's foreign policy is sensible.