Although as a sailor I despised politics - for I loved my sailor's life and still love it today - conditions forced me to take up a definite attitude towards political problems.

Please don't ask me any questions about the politics of 30 years ago.

In politics a capable ruler must be guided by circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions.

It's very personal in its politics, very bitter and very negative.

Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.

Talk of citizenship today is often thin and tinny. The word has a faintly old-fashioned feel to it when used in everyday conversation. When evoked in national politics, it's usually accompanied by the shrill whine of a descending culture-war mortar.

Sometimes when I listen to fellow progressives, I wonder if the only lesson we took away from the '04 elections is that politics is a word game.

In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war.

On the contrary, the characteristic element of the present situation is that economic questions have finally and irrevocably invaded the domain of public life and politics.

But I think it's quite clear in my work that my orientation isn't political or doesn't come out of modern politics.