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In journalism I can only tell what happened. In fiction, I can show it.

David Frum

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David Frum
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: June 30
Blogger
Journalist
Lawyer
Novelist
Speechwriter
City of Toronto
David Jeffrey Frum
Show
Tell
Shows
Journalism
Fiction
Happened

More quotes by David Frum

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We're not free because other people are nice, maybe other people aren't nice that day. We're free because we expect the institutions of government to work impersonally. That we expect people in government to understand they don't work for the president or the prime minister, they work for the government. And the government is always there.
David Frum
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Democracy requires you to learn how to lose as well as how to exercise power when you win. And that requires restraint all around. One of the reasons it works is because when you win you don't do things that are so upsetting to the losers that they feel like they have less, they have more to gain by turning over the system.
David Frum
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Life, as the signs in the liquor stores say, is too short to drink bad wine. And summer is too short to read bad books.
David Frum
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Whenever you discuss politics, it is always better to use individual names rather then the term neocon.
David Frum
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Trump is not just unlike a Republican, he's unlike a presidential candidate. The whole elaborate presidential process is designed to screen out people like Donald Trump. And that process broke down in ways quite unlike anything in the recent experience of the United States.
David Frum
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One of the questions I often get asked is, Were you surprised that Trump won? I always answer the same way: I was surprised, I am surprised and I will never stop being surprised.
David Frum
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So little of what makes a democracy work is written down. So much of it is just the things you don't do. There are a lot of things that a prime minister or a president can do and they don't do them because it never occurs to them to do them.
David Frum
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Crown Prince Rupprecht, the heir to the throne of Bavaria who commanded the army group facing the British at the Somme, was the senior direct lineal heir of James Stuart, the Old Pretender of 1715. Had there been any Jacobites left in Britain in 1916, they would have had to regard this south German prince as their rightful king.
David Frum
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I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything.
David Frum
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My mother cared more about how you reasoned than about the conclusions you reached.
David Frum
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The system has evolved to protect parties from people like Donald Trump. It really is true that people without well-established public records, without proven capability in public service, without tested beliefs and at least apparently under the influence of a foreign power, such people are screened out by major parties.
David Frum
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Yet when the hour of decision arrives, it turns out that many conservatives care as little as ever about administrative skill and executive accomplishment. Our party and our movement overwhelmingly respond to symbolic cues. Sarah Palin is exciting and appealing. But what kind of executive is she? None of us have even the remotest idea.
David Frum
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And that is how we intend to destroy the enemy! The superior shakes his head wearily. Young man, the Soviets are our adversary. The Navy is the enemy.
David Frum
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As thrilling as it was, speechwriting is ultimately frustrating for someone who wants to be a writer.
David Frum
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One of the things that really has gone wrong in modern politics, one of the things that made Trump possible was that many people have a view of politics as something dramatic and exciting and thrilling and emotional.
David Frum
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The great power the president has is that he is the most prominent person in the biggest media event on the planet. He has the attention of the nation and the world. When he speaks, everybody listens.
David Frum
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The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party.
David Frum
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So if I have two pieces of cake, do I have twice as good an experience as the first piece of cake? One of the things I've found in life is that the first piece of cake is the best.
David Frum
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Donald Trump doesn't believe in much, doesn't want to do much.
David Frum
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The habit of going to your congressman's town hall and asking questions, that's powerful in a way that shouting slogans or getting arrested is not, that is completely counterproductive.
David Frum