Bill Kristol

“I'm trying to uphold what was true about conservatism. I consider myself a Reagan conservative.”

“Patriotism is an indispensable weapon in the defense of civilization against barbarism.”

“Conservative policies have on the whole worked - insofar as any set of policies can be said to 'work' in the real world. Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of.”

“In many cases, it's a choice. There are many, many human beings through history - millions and millions and millions - who have been both homosexual at times in their lives and then heterosexual, or vice-versa, or bisexual. How can it be a biological imperative if people can change?”

“All defense secretaries in wartime have, needless to say, made misjudgments.”

“I don't think Palin really led to Trump. Was this somehow a bit of a precursor or something? I'm willing to say, 'Maybe so.'”

“Bush is no conservative.”

“Romney has to convince the American public that they need to do something they're not usually inclined to do - replace a sitting president with a challenger. And unlike in 1980 and 1992, when the public was persuaded to do just that, the incumbent president has not been weakened by a primary opponent.”

“Here's one measure of the man and the scope of his achievement: No serious historian will be able to write about 20th-century America without discussing Bill Buckley. Before Buckley, there was no conservative movement. After Buckley, there was Ronald Reagan.”

“No one can change the definition of what behavior is presidential because that definition fundamentally depends on what our form of government requires, not on what one individual prefers.”

“Some discrimination is perfectly reasonable. The discrimination between trying to teach our kids what most of human history has thought was a desirable lifestyle that will contribute to their happiness, and trying to deter them - not to prohibit, and not to punish - but trying to steer them in a direction that will contribute to their happiness.”

“A woman, like a man, should be treated with human decency, according to the rule of law, and free of the abusive, unjust exercise of power. And you don't need to have plumbed the depths of the female or male psyche to live in accord with these principles of civilized life and the maxims of a free society.”

“I'm choosing not to accept the Trumpification of the GOP as an irreversible fact.”

“Since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, conservatives of various sorts, and conservatisms of various stripes, have generally been in the ascendancy. And a good thing, too! Conservatives have been right more often than not - and more often than liberals - about most of the important issues of the day.”

“I personally - if I were designing the tax code - would have a tax code in which Mitt Romney paid more than 13 percent, given what I know about the kind of investments he made money from.”

“First impressions matter. Most people don't change their political views radically from the ones they first hold.”

“While a defeat for Obamacare in the Court would be nice, the defeat of President Obama at the polls on November 6 is crucial. If electoral victory is achieved, Obamacare can and will be repealed - and more judges of a constitutionalist persuasion will be appointed by the next president.”

“I had a great ten years at Fox, but it's also been fun being a free agent.”

“Self-government is an experiment. It could still fail.”

“In any case, decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort.”