27 Quotes by James B. Comey

Imagine supporting a leader who, as he finished his time at the helm, told us that, although he didn’t do anything intentionally wrong, he is sure he made many mistakes, prays his mistakes haven’t hurt people, and hopes we will forgive and forget the times when he was incompetent. That weakling would be run out of town on a rail. But America’s first president said exactly that in his farewell to the country in 1796.

I don’t care about politics. I don’t care about expediency. I don’t care about friendship. I care about doing the right thing. And I would never be part of something that I believe to be fundamentally wrong. I mean, obviously we all make policy judgments where people disagree, but I will do the right thing.

I know I can be wrong, even when I am certain I am right. Listening to others who disagree with me and are willing to criticize me is essential to piercing the seduction of certainty.

Do that good as long as ever you can.

There is meaning and purpose in not surrendering in the face of loss, but instead working to bind up wounds, ease pain, and spare others what you have seen. Our obligation, our duty, is to ensure that something good comes from suffering, that we find some kind of gift in good-bye.

As strange as it might sound, there is a certain freedom in being totally screwed, in knowing you will be attacked no matter what you do.

That was the last time I spoke with President Trump. We reported the call to the acting deputy attorney general. He had apparently done nothing since March 30, replying, “Oh, God, I was hoping that would just go away.

Evil has an ordinary face. It laughs, it cries, it deflects, it rationalizes, it makes great pasta.

There had always been a line. The intelligence community does facts; the White House does politics and spin, and does it on its own.