Quotes from David Brooks

I wasn't born with a tie or with Mark Shields stapled to my left hip. I have another life.

Donald Trump just needs the ego fed all the time.

Jeff Sessions has some problematic spots on his history, but he has been a pretty normal, respectable senator, more conservative than a lot of us, but a respectable senator for a long period of time.

My colleague Ross Douthat wrote that any time you give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt, he always lets you down.

Every time Kellyanne Conway goes on TV, there's another fight with whoever's interviewing her that particular day.

It is especially painful when narcissists suffer memory loss because they are losing parts of the person they love most.

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.

One of the things this world is finding is that emotion is the basis of reason. We really have to trust our emotions, which are much smarter than our reason in some ways.

Populists love rich people. They just hate professionals.

Highly educated young people are tutored, taught and monitored in all aspects of their lives, except the most important, which is character building. When it comes to this, most universities leave them alone.

People want reality that tells them how right they are all the time.

People want a reality that tells them they're right all of the time.

The technology's going to change, but what people want to read is going to be basically the same.

If we're in some sort of Hobbesian state of nature, where you just want a strong man who has no compassion Donald Trump is going to do a little better. So, we will figure out what game we're playing.

I do think Hillary Clinton should have pivoted and say, I am change, I am change, because people do want some change.

It's only useful to ask, what wisdom have you learned from your misjudgments that will help you going forward?

Empathy makes you more aware of other people's suffering, but it's not clear it actually motivates you to take moral action or prevents you from taking immoral action.

Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being.

It was easier to come to maturity when there were more well-defined philosophical options.

Donald Trump is so egregious in the way he talks about women, the way he allegedly treated women.

I don't know if I'm sexist, though I have not paid much attention to the women's bracket.

This death cult has no reason and is beyond negotiation. This is what makes it so frightening. This is what causes so many to engage in a sort of mental diversion. They don't want to confront this horror. So they rush off in search of more comprehensible things to hate.

People used to complain that selling a president was like selling a bar of soap. But when you buy soap, at least you get the soap. In this campaign you just get two guys telling you they really value cleanliness.

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