Author

Is self-interest a bad thing? We want our leaders to be pure and good, but at the same time we want them to be effective, and to be effective you often have to be ruthless and not bound by ideology or the same morals that we pretend to hold ourselves to.

From Beau Willimon

You always want to try, in everything you do, to attempt something you've never tried before, and the only way to succeed at that is through failure, and the only way to succeed through failure is just banging your head against the wall over and over until you get to that interesting thing on the other side.

From Beau Willimon

I don't desire happiness. I think it's a myth, and I don't think it's... and it makes you complacent. I feel very satisfyingly uncomfortable. I have the freedom to feel uncomfortable in the way I want to, is maybe a way to put it.

From Beau Willimon

When you're lucky enough to get paid a nice chunk of change to write a movie or a TV show, you have no right to complain, really. I guess it's more of an appeal to the powers that be that the less they interfere, the more likely, actually, they are to get something that works, I think.

From Beau Willimon

In the best possible scenario, whenever you get notes from people, they're good notes, and they see things that you wouldn't have seen otherwise, and they make you a better writer.

From Beau Willimon

Tales of power and ambition and intrigue and betrayal and desire - when you're telling those in a big way, you automatically want to go to Shakespeare.

From Beau Willimon

People in D.C. are so psyched when anyone dramatizes them in an exciting way. They're a lot more open to looking at the nastier side of themselves than the media is.

From Beau Willimon

If you really think that ambition, power, lust, desire are not as applicable in the media as in politics or on Wall Street or anywhere else, you're deluding yourself.

From Beau Willimon

Richard III is not likeable. Macbeth is not likeable. Hamlet is not likeable. And yet you can't take your eyes off them. I'm far more interested in that than I am in any sort of likeability.

From Beau Willimon

In politics, it's very theatrical. There's a lot of stage craft. The campaign is trying to tell a story that they want people to believe in, and candidates are playing the role, like actors, by a creative personae that people will be attracted to.

From Beau Willimon

Beau Willimon

Notable Quotes

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