In real life, the most practical advice for leaders is not to treat pawns like pawns, nor princes like princes, but all persons like persons.

Leaders are not pale reflectors of major social conflicts; they play up some, play down others, ignore still others.

Woodrow Wilson called for leaders who, by boldly interpreting the nation's conscience, could lift a people out of their everyday selves. That people can be lifted into their better selves is the secret of transforming leadership.

I like to think that I'm not as ominous in real life.

[...] as Kurt Vonnegut pointed out [...] the literary novel has become extraordinarily privatistic of late. It's as if the big issues (Does God exist? from whence springs decency? what sort of species is Homo Sapiens?) were either settled or not worth discusssing, and serious writers should therefore confine themselves to their various ethnic heritages and interpersonal relationships.

In real life, I'm gorgeous, beautiful.