A biography for Christopher Buckleyhasn’t been written yet.
“We live - on a spinning planet in a world of spin.”
“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.”
“Catch-22's admirers cross boundaries - ideological, generational, geographical.”
“Mum's serial misbehavior over the years had driven me, despairing, to write her scolding - occasionally scalding letters.”
“I hope when I'm on my deathbed, people forgive me, because there is a lot to forgive.”
“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.”
“I've lived in Washington since 1981 and have been a faithful reader of 'The Washington Post' ever since.”
“I want Tom Clancy, the Maryland novelist, to write the story of the rest of my life.”
“It's odd to think of yourself as an orphan at 55.”
“I cast my first vote on my father's lap in 1960, for Richard Nixon, in the voting booth. I was 8.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I once spoke to 9,000 people, but they managed to fit them all into a structure that resembled a Zeppelin hangar, so it was a contained space in which whatever laughter I generated could ricochet and hang around for a bit, encouraging others to join in.”
“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.”
“In public relations, you live with the reality that not every disaster can be made to look like a misunderstood triumph.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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?”
“Myself, I'm a post-ideological conservative.”
“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.”