Frank Luntz

I've done reasonably well over the last 10 years because I took the strategy of language and politics and applied it to the corporate world, which has never been done before.

How I say it has as much of an impact on what people think of me as what I say.

My job as a pollster is to understand what really matters.

Preserving parks and open spaces is a winner because it doesn't need to be explained to everyday Americans.

The challenge in working in politics, particularly if you're working for a political party, is that everyone's a messenger.

One of the things that you have trouble with politicians, particularly in Washington, is when you get mad at them and you can't touch them; you can't punch them; you can't yell at them.

There's a problem with political polling in that you have so much pressure to do what your client wants you to do and say what your client wants you to say. I've never felt that pressure. I am independent of the political parties.

The principles behind explaining and educating the product or the elected official is similar, even though the actual execution of it is very, very different.

The way you communicate an idea is different than the way you communicate a product.

There's a lot of money with a lot of big law firms that have a tremendous amount at stake by getting the right language to convince the right jury that my client is either innocent or that the opposition is guilty.

Ideology and communication more often than not run into each other rather than complement each other. Principle and communication work together. Ideology and communication often work apart.

I don't understand why people whose entire lives or their corporate success depends on communication, and yet they are led on occasion by CEOs who cannot talk their way out of a paper bag and don't care to.