Quotes from Christopher Buckley

Necessity is the motherfucker of invention.

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

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

They embraced and parted. They never saw each other again.

Justices look solemn in their formal black robes, but every so often they like to have a little fun by taking on a strange case, or overturning a presidential election, that sort of thing.

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.

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

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...

You could drink hard liquor in the middle of a school day without people assuming you were an alcoholic underachiever. Strange how in America in the 1950s, at the height of its industrial and imperial power, men drank double-martinis for lunch. Now, in its decline, they drank fizzy water. Somewhere something had gone terribly wrong.

In cyberspace, everyone can hear you scream.

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

Speechwriters are fundamentally Calvinist: They become nervous if their principals exhibit free will and depart from the prepared text.

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

Rudy Giuliani, the president's former personal attorney, was now living in the Julian Assange suite at the Ecuadorean embassy in London. While changing planes at Heathrow, Rudy was tipped off that the Justice Department had issued a warrant for his arrest for injurious punditry and pernicious legal representation.

Oderint dum metuant." "You're going to have to translate that for me. I didn't go to Gratin." "It's Groton. Means 'Let them hate, so long as they fear.' Cato.

It's the fate of many propositions," Terry said, "to begin as heresies and end as truths. I read that somewhere, anyway.

Why should you give up God because of gunpowder? Since the world began, God in his wisdom has given us tools with which to slaughter each other. Jawbones of asses. Slings. Swords. Crossbows. Why shouldn't he give us gunpowder?

Ronald Reagan used to say that the nine scariest words in the English language were 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.

What a country, America. A lunatic asylum, without enough attendants or tranquilizers.

I don't think I ever once heard Mum utter a religious or spiritual sentiment, a considerable feat considering that she was married for 57 years to one of the most prominent Catholics in the country.

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

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

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

Her parents, Austin Taylor and Kathleen Taylor, were big deals in Vancouver - they were civic leaders, and he raced horses in the Kentucky Derby - and my mother grew up a debutante. And when she and my dad were married, there were about a thousand guests at that reception.