Christopher Buckley Quotes & Sayings

If you're a speech writer for a president, you don't really see all that much of him because there's so many layers between you and him. But with a vice president, it's different. — Christopher Buckley

I try to refrain from the alarmist statement, really I do. It's bad for the liver and worries the dog, who has plenty enough to worry about as it is. — Christopher Buckley

There was a glamorous Nick-and-Nora element to my parents. If you remove one from the other, you're left with neither. But parents are parents. — Christopher Buckley

I'm not a particularly cerebral writer. I unabashedly go for the belly. — Christopher Buckley

In public relations, you live with the reality that not every disaster can be made to look like a misunderstood triumph. — Christopher Buckley

It was - unthinkable: three of the most powerful men in Europe - the world - the Pope, the Emperor Maximilian, and Albrecht - all wanted Luther tied to a stake and burned. Yet each time they reached out to light the fire, Luther snatched the torch from their hands and set fire to their own robes. How was a mere monk able to do this? Because he was protected by the Elector Frederick, who declined to hand over one of his Saxon subjects to other authority. What did Frederick have to gain by shielding Luther? — Christopher Buckley

The laws have become so straight-jacketing that presidents and their aides dare not keep journals or diaries, lest they be subpoenaed by avid special prosecutors. — Christopher Buckley

Joe Scarborough was one of 74 Republicans elected to the Congress in 1994 in response to the missteps of the early Clinton era. He was the first Republican elected to Congress from his northern Florida district since the 1870s and handily won re-election three times. — Christopher Buckley

Necessity is the motherfucker of invention. — Christopher Buckley

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

My instincts are conservative, but my inclinations are also libertarian. — Christopher Buckley

We make our public servants jump through quite a few hoops, you know. We get hysterical if they accept a $50 lunch from a lobbyist. We get hysterical if they accept a ride on some corporate jet. — Christopher Buckley

I think people assumed because of my last name that I was a real right-winger. And if you cared to look at my writing, you would be hard pressed to deduce that I'm an ideological right-winger. — Christopher Buckley

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

I cast my first vote on my father's lap in 1960, for Richard Nixon, in the voting booth. I was 8. — Christopher Buckley

With real estate, it's location, location, location. In public speaking, it's acoustics, acoustics, acoustics. — Christopher Buckley

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

I just write what comes along. I don't have a detailed master plan. — Christopher Buckley

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

I'm accused of, and perhaps rightly so, of not being mean enough. I've been taken to task in many a book review; a good satirist has to, you know, has to kill. — Christopher Buckley

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. — Christopher Buckley

The ideological distance between Jim Webb and Bertrand Russell can be measured in light years. An author who reaches both of them exerts something like universal appeal. — Christopher Buckley

The tradition of putting candles on Christmas trees actually began in Germany. The person who came up with the idea is thought to have been Martin Luther, father of the Reformation. — Christopher Buckley

How many Republicans does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to mix the martinis, one to change the light bulb, and one to reminisce about how good the old one was. — Christopher Buckley

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. — Christopher Buckley

I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P. J. O'Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away. — Christopher Buckley

I have been on the receiving end of many blessings in my life, few as great as having known George and Barbara Bush. — Christopher Buckley

I haven't left the Republican Party. It left me. — Christopher Buckley

The first novel I wrote, 'The White House Mess,' was a comic novel. It came out in 1986. It was a parody in the form of a White House memoir. — Christopher Buckley

I want Tom Clancy, the Maryland novelist, to write the story of the rest of my life. — Christopher Buckley

I grew up in the GOP sandbox. My dad took me, age 7, to meet Herbert Hoover, in his apartment at the Waldorf Towers. He gave me a silver dollar. Being a young Republican, I spent it on comic books. — Christopher Buckley

My dad's one true quest in life was for the Platonic ideal of peanut butter. And I remember one day he announced, with a look of utter transfiguration on his face, that he had found paradise on Earth in a jar with a yellow cap. And it was called Red Wing. — Christopher Buckley

I remember standing in the crow's nest as we entered the misty Panama Canal, and the strange sensation as the 4,000-ton ship rose higher and higher inside the lock. — Christopher Buckley

I am not a political thinker. I'm not even much of a thinker. I'm a hack novelist. — Christopher Buckley

In a 24/7 news cycle, with all the shrieking, howling voices and rapid-response and instant spinning and Soviet-style disinformation-mongering, a good idea has a shelf life of about, um, six seconds. — Christopher Buckley

The thought of Sarah Palin as president gives me acid reflux. — Christopher Buckley

I remember dawn coming up over the Strait of Malacca; ragamuffin kids on the dock in Sumatra laughing as they pelted us with bananas; collecting dead flying fish off the deck and bringing them to our sweet, fat, toothless Danish cook to fry up for breakfast. — Christopher Buckley

I'll let Democrats defend spending our grandchildren broke on entitlements. — Christopher Buckley

When the going gets tough in Washington, presidents appoint 'blue ribbon' commissions. — Christopher Buckley

I spent, whether consciously or unconsciously, most of my career trying to be something other than William F. Buckley's son. — Christopher Buckley

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

They embraced and parted. They never saw each other again. — Christopher Buckley

People believe unbelievable things because it's self-flattering to think that you are intellectually daring enough to accept what others find preposterous. — Christopher Buckley

Oil they would buy from anyone. From Satan. — Christopher Buckley

My wife and I spent the winter in Worcestershire. This allowed me to tell everyone back home in the States, 'We are wintering in Worcestershire.' This may be a sentence that has never actually been uttered in human history, even by people who spend all their winters in Worcestershire. — Christopher Buckley

My father would have been impressed by Barack Obama's mind and style and grace of manner, as well as by - I'm certain - his abilities as a writer. — Christopher Buckley

A twenty-minute eulogy, unless composed by a) William Shakespeare, b) Winston Churchill, or c) Mark Twain, is sixteen minutes too long. Technical note: It is better to tell a eulogist to speak for four minutes not five minutes. "Five minutes" to the modern ear sounds like "around five minutes," whereas "four minutes" means "four minutes. — Christopher Buckley

I worked at the White House in the early Reagan administration at a time when the deficit rocket really started to take off. — Christopher Buckley

It was a mistake to think that my views would have been taken on their own terms. It was a mistake to think that my last name wouldn't be a factor. — Christopher Buckley

If I were to win the Nobel Prize in Literature - which I think it's fairly safe to say is not going to happen - I would still expect the headline on my obituary to read: 'Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley, Jr., is dead at 78.' — Christopher Buckley

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

Let's look at this rationally ... We've got a doctor who may kill him, an Attorney General who wants to declare him bananas, and a Defense Secretary who wants me to start World War III ... First, we ruled out starting World War III. We were down to killing the President or having him carted off by the men in white coats ... — Christopher Buckley

I had worked for George Bush as a speechwriter, and I read a lot of White House memoirs. They all have two themes: 'It Wasn't My Fault' and 'It Would Have Been Much Worse if I Hadn't Been There.' — Christopher Buckley

I was an only child who had every advantage, every blessing, absolutely. — Christopher Buckley

I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. — Christopher Buckley

Short of taking monastic vows or trekking into the Kalahari, a freighter passage might just offer what our relentlessly connected age has made difficult, if not impossible: splendid isolation. — Christopher Buckley

The cliche in American politics is that one week is an eternity. — Christopher Buckley

A new idea is like carbonated liquid in a bottle. You just sort of shake it until the cork pops, then you write and write. — Christopher Buckley

We live - on a spinning planet in a world of spin. — Christopher Buckley

Try, if you will, to imagine Dwight Eisenhower or JFK or Lyndon Johnson or, for that matter, Ronald Reagan chin-wagging with Jack Paar or Johnny Carson. Richard Nixon did, famously, go on 'Laugh In' in 1968, but as a candidate; and to his credit, he rued the day and hated every second of it. — Christopher Buckley

It's odd to think of yourself as an orphan at 55. — Christopher Buckley

Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. — Christopher Buckley

You live vicariously through your characters. — Christopher Buckley

Perhaps, after all, the most beautiful words in the language are I'm sorry. — Christopher Buckley

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. — Christopher Buckley

Between G and H Streets, and bore the characteristic "eagle" watermark. Ryan decided that the eagle — Christopher Buckley

I love Washington. I have an affection for the place. For a satirist, I think it's sort of Disneyland. I mean, you know, there's always some inspiration in the morning's headlines. — Christopher Buckley

As for the financial world - I've been working in the Forbes building for eight years. You soak up a little bit of ambient stuff about all this - I know what a gold straddle is, what the Lombard rate is. — Christopher Buckley

Pop was a devout Roman Catholic; I'm a lapsed Catholic. I'm not the village atheist, but I exert my right not to believe, and I doubt I would have been very public about that were he still alive, simply just so as not to hurt his feelings. — Christopher Buckley

In our corrupt times, the virtue of a Pontiff is commended when he does not surpass the wickedness of other men. - Francesco Guicciardini, History of Italy, 1561 — Christopher Buckley

Mum's serial misbehavior over the years had driven me, despairing, to write her scolding - occasionally scalding letters. — Christopher Buckley

I certainly wish I were as good-looking as Aaron Eckhart. — Christopher Buckley

I voted for Barack Obama largely on the basis of his temperament, which I thought superior. He is only 47 years old, but to me seemed older than that: a man of precocious aspect and judgment. — Christopher Buckley

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. — Christopher Buckley

I love Oscar Wilde, still the wittiest writer of anyone, dead or living. — Christopher Buckley

You can't tell what's aboard a container ship. We carried every kind of cargo, all of it on view: a police car, penicillin, Johnnie Walker Red, toilets, handguns, lumber, Ping-Pong balls, and IBM data cards. — Christopher Buckley

Fiction, for me, is sort of a protracted way of saying all the things I wished I said the night before. — Christopher Buckley

I'm a Republican, but I find Nancy Pelosi very attractive. — Christopher Buckley

Really, what's not to love in John McCain, satire-wise? As if he had not already been good enough to us, then came his nomination of Sarah Palin. Here, truly, was a gift from the gods of satire. — Christopher Buckley

I can say this, now that my own beloved and irreplaceable parents are gone: George and Barbara Bush are parents anyone would kill to have. — Christopher Buckley

I have known John McCain personally since 1982. I wrote a well-received speech for him. — Christopher Buckley

I think I got a lot of my 'funny' DNA from my mother, who had a glorious sense of the ridiculous. — Christopher Buckley

Whatever you thought of his politics, Ronald Reagan was a great man, a courageous man. He took an assassin's bullet and joked to the doctors as they desperately worked to save his life. — Christopher Buckley

I hope when I'm on my deathbed, people forgive me, because there is a lot to forgive. — Christopher Buckley

Every election, a presidential candidate inevitably proposes a new cabinet agency. The idea is that this is the only way to solve a particular problem. Just create more government. — Christopher Buckley

Block of Death. Just inside the door on the left is the room where they held the proceedings. Jarek remarks that the SS officer who sentenced five thousand Poles here to die was still alive last year, living in Germany, age ninety-two. We ask why. He shrugs. At the far end on the corridor, on the left, looking out into the courtyard, is the room where the condemned were stripped and held. An illustration depicts a naked girl holding on to her mother's legs as the SS guard comes for them. High on the wall, a prisoner scratched graffiti, a name and the date and the words, "Sentenced to die." Beneath that is the date of the next day and the words, "I'm still here. — Christopher Buckley

Who needs evidence when you've got the Internet? — Christopher Buckley

'Catch-22's first readers were largely of the generation that went through World War II. For them, it provided a startlingly fresh take, a much-needed, much-delayed laugh at the terror and madness they endured. — Christopher Buckley

Women might just have something to contribute to civilization other than their vaginas. — Christopher Buckley

Newt Gingrich has certainly seen his own empire rise - and fall. — Christopher Buckley

Lobbyists didn't descend from a spaceship. They evolved organically from the way we do business. — Christopher Buckley

It may not come as a huge surprise when I reveal that her closest friends were, by and large, gay gentlemen. Pup was once asked in a published interview if he was aware of the statistical datum that roughly 10 percent of the U.S. male population is homosexual. He replied, "If that's the case, then I've met them all." I — Christopher Buckley

I'd worked at the White House for two years, and I'd read a bunch of White House memoirs because everybody who works at the White House, even for five minutes, writes a memoir usually not less than 600 pages long - and never without the word 'power' in the title. — Christopher Buckley

You never remember who came to the funeral, but you never forget who didn't. — Christopher Buckley

There is no point in arguing if you are not susceptible to reason. Embrace your cynicism. Hug it. — Christopher Buckley

Writing's all I know. Frankly, I've never been able to do anything else. — Christopher Buckley

Once they're both gone, your parents' house instantly turns into a museum. — Christopher Buckley

American voters tend to make their decisions based on a variety of vectors. Professional political satirists employ rather more scientific criteria. Namely: who will provide us with better material over the next four years? — Christopher Buckley

It's axiomatic that all husbands are impossible. But I also think it's axiomatic that women are slightly impossible. — Christopher Buckley

The needs of the nation are not necessarily convergent with the needs of the deadline satirist. — Christopher Buckley