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When you cover politics, you realize that knowing how to talk about character matters more and more. The way we hold ideas is more important than the ideas.

You have to keep a strong sense of who you really are - and I have a pretty strong sense of myself. It gets me in trouble when I say this, but I don't think of myself as a politician. I've always tried to be honest when communicating with people.

I don't think you can work on feelings in politics, apart from anything else, political change can come very unexpectedly, sometimes overnight when you least expect it.

But I'm not interested in politics. I lose interest the microsecond it ceases to be emotional, when something becomes a political movement. What I'm interested in is emotions.

My passion for ideas is not matched with a passion for partisan or electoral politics.

One of my unique features as a politician is that I am so blunt and so forthright, and I put my cards on the table to such a degree people aren't used to, that there's nothing left to hide.

In all the poems I've written I've not really engaged in politics, and when I've found myself moving in that direction I've always stopped myself.

Once you start saying, 'Let's talk political, my own politics, my own aspirations,' it can become not just distracting in that it takes time, but it can become confusing and frustrating, and is this now a political agenda or a governmental agenda.

I'm fascinated by politicians, because I suspect the huge majority of them go into it full of ideas and for the best possible reasons but end up being hijacked.

I have a temperament that doesn't adapt well to politics. It's because I speak my mind so much.