A Quote by Michael Portillo

I was brought up in a house where I was so aware of a life that had been broken by politics and conflict. — © Michael Portillo
I was brought up in a house where I was so aware of a life that had been broken by politics and conflict.
One of the real dilemmas we have in our country and around the world is that what works in politics is organization and conflict. That is, drawing the sharp distinctions. But in real life, what works is networks and cooperation. And we need victories in real life, so we've got to get back to networks and cooperation, not just conflict. But politics has always been about conflict, and in the coverage of politics, information dissemination tends to be organized around conflict as well.
My parents were older than normal when they had me, and had been very into the politics of the 1960s, so I was brought up in that atmosphere.
All of us... anyone that's been in Fleetwood Mac, as far as I've been aware, has been seemingly pretty well brought up by their parents: not goody two-shoes - God knows we weren't - but there was a level of civility that the lads in the band were aware of, what is over the brink of decency.
As a very young poet, I had been brought up on that dogma that politics was bad for poetry.
A few years ago, I was trying to buy a piece of land next to a house I had in Newfoundland. I discovered that the plot had been owned by a family, and the son had gone off to World War I and been killed. It began to interest me: What would have happened on that land if the son had lived, had brought up his own family there?
For me, the card catalog has been a companion all my working life. To leave it is like leaving the house one was brought up in.
The 1994 midterms had been a shocking rout for the GOP, which picked up 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate. No one had seen it coming. The Democratic Congress was supposed to be a permanent fact of life; it had been 40 years since Republicans had controlled the chamber.
I did not bring up my child to think that she was a star. If I had treated her any differently, it would have messed everything up. She was brought up normally, like other kids, in a normal house, and it was a normal, middle-class life.
My life had become a catastrophe. I had no idea how to turn it around. My band had broken up. I had almost lost my family. My whole life had devolved into a disaster. I believe that the police officer who stopped me at three a.m. that morning saved my life.
I believe that there was a great age, a great epoch when man did not make war: previous to 2000 B.C. Then the self had not reallybecome aware of itself, it had not separated itself off, the spirit was not yet born, so there was no internal conflict, and hence no permanent external conflict.
We were brought up Protestant, and I went to church three times a day on a Sunday. My parents weren't Bible-bashers, but we all have a strong belief in God and a strong faith. We had a huge garden; our house was a bit like a scene from 'The Good Life.' I think Mam and Dad had it really hard, bringing up a big family on very little.
In a time of polarized politics there's one thing that more than ninety percent of Americans agree on, that our government is broken, and broken because of the money in politics.
I brought my lips down to hers, and it was like everything that had ever happened to me had simply been a warm-up for this moment, that this was where my life truly began.
Familiar life, tending to sordidness, had been succeeded by remote life, generally idealized; historical detail had been brought in to teach readers who were being entertained.
There is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life, when a woman has to make a decision - possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life - and that is, whether to be bitter or not. Women often come to this in their late thirties or early forties. They are at the point where they are full up to their ears with everything and they've "had it" and "the last straw has broken the camel's back" and they're "pissed off and pooped out." Their dreams of their twenties may be lying in a crumple. There may be broken hearts, broken marriages, broken promises.
All of us grow up in particular realities - a home, family, a clan, a small town, a neighborhood. Depending upon how we're brought up, we are either deeply aware of the particular reading of reality into which we are born, or we are peripherally aware of it.
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