The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks about the next election while the statesman think about the next generation.

It's not about politics. I was against [the North American Free Trade Agreement, which many more liberal politicians were also against.] I'm just out there to help enforce the laws.

There are too many politicians in the world and too few statesmen.

["The Devil in the Dark"] impressed me because it presented the idea, unusual in science fiction then and now, that something weird, and even dangerous, need not be malevolent. That is a lesson that many of today's politicians have yet to learn.

[Still, such a idea is political dynamite.] The politics are impossible, ... Politicians do this at their peril.

I think a lot of it is just politicians playing politics in an election year, but at the end of the day I think you'll see the deal go through. This is the year 2000 and that means we live in a global telecommunications industry. So if the United States wants to participate in that, then they'll let this deal go through.