Christopher Buckley Quotations

He doesn't like being told what to do. He's reacting against the neo-Puritanism that you mustn't smoke, you mustn't drink, guns are bad.

He?s an American archetype, the PR hustler, who is sort of basically good at heart, but he?s in it for the thrill of the verbal chase and he?s excited by it and he gets carried away with his own artistry.

Oil they would buy from anyone. From Satan.

Reading any collection of a man's quotations is like eating the ingredients that go into a stew instead of cooking them together in the pot. You eat all the carrots, then all the potatoes, then the meat. You won't go away hungry, but it's not quite satisfying. Only a biography, or autobiography, gives you the hot meal.

Nothing raises the national temperature more than a VACANCY sign hanging from the colonnaded front of the Supreme Court.

Christopher Hitchens is the greatest living essayist in the English language.

One realization does dawn upon the death of the second parent, namely that you've now moved into the green room to the River Styx. You're next.

Who needs evidence when you've got the Internet?

E-mails are the new herpes: You never get rid of them.

The vice-president's tongue is several time zones ahead of his brain.

Who knew, in 2000, that 'compassionate conservatism' meant bigger government, unrestricted government spending, government intrusion in personal matters, government ineptitude, and cronyism in disaster relief? Who knew, in 2000, that the only bill the president would veto, six years later, would be one on funding stem-cell research? A more accurate term for Mr. Bush's political philosophy might be incontinent conservatism.

I looked at Mum and realized -- twang! -- that she was telling an untruth. A big untruth. And I remember thinking in that instant how thrilling and grown-up it must be to say something so completely untrue, as opposed to the little amateur fibs I was already practiced at -- horrid little apprentice sinner that I was --like the ones about you'd already said your prayers or washed under the fingernails. Yes, I was impressed. I too must learn to say these gorgeous untruths. Imaginary kings and queens would be my houseguests when I was older.

And each year now we know more, but we know no better — what we see in the sky is simply the softened gloss of the past sifting back to us, and likewise, every atom down the body’s shining length was inside a star, and will be again.

The best advice on writing I've ever received was from William Zinsser: 'Be grateful for every word you can cut.'

How many times had those awful words - "I know what I'm doing" - been uttered throughout history as prelude to disaster?

That's the beauty of argument, if you argue correctly, you're never wrong.

I don't like breathing other people's smoke, but if we can put a man on the moon, my guess is that we can find a way to ventilate the smoke in one section of a bar or restaurant away from the non-smokers.

The danger in that is that you find yourself promoting cancer.