Dr. David Scheiner, who was once Obama's doctor:

Obama invited his barber to his inauguration -- his barber! But I wasn't invited. Believe me, that hurt.

Mary Beard, on Boris Johnson:

He was particularly taken with the suggestion that a politician was well advised to lie his way into popular favor, or at least that he should promise more than he could deliver. "After all," as Philip Freeman translates it in his new version of [Quintus Cicero's "How to Win an Election"], "if a politician made only promises he was sure he could keep, he wouldn't have many friends." "Exactly," said Boris. "That is just how modern politics works."

David Hockney:

Can governments maintain control when they know the street has a new power which they are forced to accept? It might look like chaos, but new forms of representation will arise. Could they be better?

Paul Volcker:

We look upon ourselves, with some justice, as a great country, the strongest and richest in a changing and troubled world, a place of stability and leadership. But now our country is mired in debt. It is dependent on large continuing flows of capital from abroad, without much savings of its own and with slow growth and household income flat. Those are not characteristics of a country willing and able to prolong its global leadership.

It is widely known that the constitutional process for nominating and confirming the federal government's senior policy officials has become dangerously distorted, inhibiting the prompt and effective leadership and management of any new administration.

The delays and risks for an able and well-respected man or woman willing to take up the gauntlet of public service are daunting. These days too many of the highly competent and willing, even those eager to make a contribution, simply refuse to be considered or to wait out the process.

Robert C. Pozen:

Instead of counting the hours you work, judge your success by the results you produce.