Quotes from Lawrence O'Donnell

Anything anyone wants to say about me is fair. There's not a single thing that any viewer has ever said about anything I do on television that has bothered me in the least. And every single person has the right to hate whoever they want to hate on television, whether it be singers, actors, pundits. That's the deal.

Republicans believe that tax cuts can build buildings, all sorts of miraculous things. A lot of Democrats and liberals believe that spending more money in a school is going to up the test scores, no matter how much evidence there is that it won't, or hasn't.

I spent a few years after college as a Boston public school teacher and I loved it. But I was never committed to it, committed to it as a career.

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.

You don't immediately adopt the values and the framework of this, the academically successful world, just because okay now you kids get to go to high school.

I've lived a life of unplanned freelance employment.

Desegregation came very painfully to the Boston schools, long after John Kelly finished high school, and the pain of desegregating Boston schools was visited entirely on the students who looked like Frederica Wilson.

If in the script there is an argument about gun control, the most precious document you could produce at 'The West Wing' that week is a passionate, intelligent case against gun control. We know how to do the other one.

At 'The West Wing,' I cast newscasters, and when you put out a casting call for actors, half of the people who come in are real local L.A. newscasters. Each time, I ended up hiring one of them, because they're better at it. Big surprise! A newscaster is better at playing a newscaster than an actor is.

Never once has Republican world said hey, maybe we should look into how police officers are carrying out their solemn public responsibility to serve and protect. No - no right wing website in America is investigating or will ever investigate how well police officers do their jobs.

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.

The 'West Wing' writers room would not have come up with the idea of running a presidential campaign in which an African-American gets elected. Because the realism view would have said that's not possible.

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 worst teacher in America could never do as much damage as the worst police officer in America. But the right wing has never even been slightly curious about evaluating the job performance of police officers.

The West Wing' is an extremely naive entry into politics and political thinking.

I've never done anything that I need to be doing tomorrow. If someone says, 'We no longer want you here,' I won't show up again. It was true at 'The West Wing.' It was true in the Senate.

Everything I ever suggested for 'The West Wing' comes from my work with Senator Moynihan.

Henry Kissinger spent years negotiating the terms of our surrender there and ended up with a deal that he could have gotten on the first day he went to work in the Nixon White House - the Americans leave and North Vietnam wins.

Publicly, defense lawyers cling to the text book theory that the defendant has no burden of proof and that no negative inference should ever be taken when a defendant doesn't defend himself on the witness stand.

Prosecutors have absolutely no control over what witnesses say when they leave the grand jury room.

Rudy Giuliani needed to feel safe because he turned his life into a public mess. A public mess that the "New York Tabloids" covered daily.

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

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

Every single television product has the ambition to chase ratings, every one of them. Many have other ambitions, for many, ratings are not #1. But my experience on TV, and on the entertainment side, has been entirely ratings-based. When I look at TV I look at ratings. And I never second guess ratings. Never.