Anyone who comes into your office with an idea, and it may be the silliest idea in the world, listen to them and never ridicule them.

You can't assume anything in politics. That's why every Saturday I walk around my district. I talk to the longshoremen in Charlestown. I listen to the people in East Boston and their concern on the airport noise. I walk down to the Star Market in Porter Square, and people tell me about meat prices.

I think the speaker of the House in Congress should be like the Massachusetts speaker: all-powerful. He should appoint committee chairmen and remove them if they stray from the party line. He should be answerable only to the caucus, which can remove him at any time. I'd throw the seniority system out on its ear in Congress.

Ridicule is the language of the devil

The sublime and ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step below the sublime makes the ridiculous and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.

We have oftener than once endeavoured to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to Shaftesbury, which however we can find nowhere in his works, that "ridicule is the test of truth."