The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. That's what you have to do: you have to be confident in your potential and aware of your inexperience.

Jon Lovett

I'll always cringe remembering those little embarrassing moments when I said something dumb on a conference call, when my inexperience poked through, when I should have been more solicitous of the judgment of those around me. They're a reminder that it's not mutually exclusive to be confident and humble, to be skeptical and eager to learn.

Jon Lovett

I am very glad that Paul Ryan left the government as a capitulating supplicant to Donald Trump while the government was shut down, while the debt hit record levels, right? Every single thing Paul Ryan claimed to care about.

Jon Lovett

We are drowning in partisan rhetoric that is just true enough not to be a lie; in industry-sponsored research; in social media's imitation of human connection; in legalese and corporate double-speak.

Jon Lovett

America needs a strong, rational, positive, practical conservative movement. It needs that bulwark against liberal delusion and hubris. It needs a voice that says we are imperfect, that life is complex, that government can create need even as it meets need, that you can't fix everything, and freedom is worth some danger and sorrow.

Jon Lovett

If there is one way that I would sum up what the 2016 election was on cable news, it was world-class journalists interviewing morons.

Jon Lovett

When I was a kid, all I knew about Michael Jackson was that he was crazy. He had a monkey named Bubbles and some kind of oxygen chamber, and he used to be black, but he made himself white, and he was nuts. That was Michael Jackson in full. Wacko Jacko.

Jon Lovett

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. That's what you have to do: you have to be confident in your potential and aware of your inexperience.

Jon Lovett

The First Amendment's protections have always put a great deal of responsibility in our hands: not only to respect the power of our own speech, but also to respect that same power in the hands of people we despise.

Jon Lovett

Kellyanne Conway is one of the most dishonest humans ever to grace the office she holds.

Jon Lovett

When in doubt, mock the powerful, not the powerless.

Jon Lovett

They're the last human beings susceptible to human shame. Politicians are the only people left for whom, occasionally, shame hurts them. Everyone else, we've sort of done away with it as a concept, and we're hurtling through space like animals, basically.

Jon Lovett

I worked on one speech about the financial system that caused the Dow to drop, like, 200 points.

Jon Lovett

Regardless of how lyrical or rhetorically gifted they are in conveying big ideas, any candidate can do a good job of giving a speech if the goal of a speech is more than just delivering it well but achieving some end, whether it's convincing people of some issue or persuading them about you as a person.

Jon Lovett

Part of my job as a presidential speechwriter (along with great writers like Jon Favreau and David Axelrod) was finding that sliver where 'presidential' and 'actually funny' overlap.

Jon Lovett

Whenever you're talking about using humor in politics or in a policy speech or in a serious moment, you're talking about using it as a tool to engage people. That's why putting a joke in a political speech is a luxury, and it is always a risk.

Jon Lovett

It's a reasonable thing to tell somebody, 'I've watched 70 hours of 'Game of Thrones.'' That's a totally normal, boring thing to say about yourself. But if you were like, 'I just spent 100 hours playing 'Skyrim,'' people think you're a weirdo.

Jon Lovett

'The West Wing' was an incredible, inspiring show - and one of the reasons I wanted to be a speechwriter.

Jon Lovett

We need people to point out groupthink - We need people to point out stale, old, dumb thinking - and we sometimes need to do that when it's considered dangerous, strange, or, by some, offensive. And we should be, all of us, trying to protect that. It's really important.

Jon Lovett

A boring speech can be just a boring speech. But a speech with a joke that falls flat is awful. I hate it. That's why I think it's easier to hate a comedy. If a drama doesn't land, it's boring; if a joke doesn't land - you hate that.

Jon Lovett

So often on CNN, there's a world-class journalist interviewing campaign rejects and ideologues and silly, craven people who do not care about informing people, that aren't there to help people understand what's going on in the news.

Jon Lovett