Buckley Quotes

#1. Coming to terms with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee is like being told you have Stage 1 or Stage 2 cancer. You know you'll probably survive, but one way or the other, there's going to be a lot of throwing up.

Christopher Buckley

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

Christopher Buckley

#3. I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#4. President Obama came to office proclaiming that he aims to solve problems, not hand them on to our children. Most presidents say that sort of thing.

Christopher Buckley

#5. I was very aware of Jeff Buckley. My brother actually bought me The Mamas And The Papas and Jeff Buckley for my birthday when I was in my early teens.

Imogen Poots

#6. 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

#7. A capitalist is someone who derives a substantial share of his income from his equity in producing companies. On this scale the figures are discouraging. Approximately ninety percent of the capital of this country is owned by five or less percent of the American people.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#8. William F. Buckley, Jr. does not speak so much as exhale, but he exhales polysyllabically, and the results are remarkable.

Edwin Newman

#9. 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

#10. By the way, you don't need the makeup." Puck said.

Michael Buckley

#11. If we have to get married and have a million babies, I hope our relationship will be built on mutual disgust and an endless barrage of ridicule and insults. It feels like the only thing I can count on right now. I don't want something dumb like respect and affection getting in the way.

Michael Buckley

#12. We can't compare stories. We can only know in our hearts that we are the same. That may be the best we can do.

Betty Buckley

#13. I never disliked humanity more than when I watched how indifferently they reacted to creation

Keith Buckley

#14. If enough people openly engage in conduct once considered reprehensible, we rewrite the rule book and assume that God, as a good democrat, will go along.

James L. Buckley

#15. 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

#16. Few things hurt more than doubt creeping into a life of conviction.
Go back to the last sure knowledge you have - the last revelation you know to be true and stand your ground. Stand firm and wait.
The Universe will send you aid and clarity.
Even if you can't see it at first.

Jaime Buckley

#17. That woman is hiding something!" she said.
"You think everyone's hiding something."
"And you would hug the devil if he gave you cookies.

Michael Buckley

#18. But how reassuring it was for us, you remember, every now and then ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"), to vibrate to the music of the very heartstrings of the Leader of the Free World who, to qualify convincingly as such, had after all to feel a total commitment to the Free World.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#19. Were you hare when I was fox?

Tim Buckley

#20. I had hoped that the current presidential campaign debates might educate the public as to what is really involved in the ongoing controversy over campaign financing.

James L. Buckley

#21. Now it is one thing to say I say it that people shouldn't consume psychoactive drugs. It is entirely something else to condone marijuana laws, the application of which resulted, in 1995, in the arrest of 588,963 Americans. Why are we so afraid to inform ourselves on the question?

William F. Buckley Jr.

#22. If even a dog's tooth is truly worshipped it glows with light. The venerated object is endowed with power . . . - Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea

Christopher Buckley

#23. I'm pretty lucky to work on both 'CSI: NY' and 'Supernatural.' Not bad gigs!

A. J. Buckley

#24. Sensitivity isn't being wimpy. It's about being so painfully aware that a flea landing on a dog is like a sonic boom.

Jeff Buckley

#25. The work that must be done for each woman to reconnect with her psyche and to give herself a chance to live her own life is essentially the same. The realization of the equality of all races, the equality of all beings is essential.

Betty Buckley

#26. Don't perform, communicate and surrender!

Betty Buckley

#27. It would seem, therefore, that this constitutional safeguard may no longer serve its original purpose, especially when, as we learned last year, some acts of perjury may now be acceptable - in this world, at least, if not the next.

James L. Buckley

#28. 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

#29. The kind of corruption the media talk about, the kind the Supreme Court was concerned about, involves the putative sale of votes in exchange for campaign contributions.

James L. Buckley

#30. The parallels between making love and giving birth are clear, not only in terms of passion and love, but also because we need essentially the same conditions for both experiences: privacy and safety.

Sarah J. Buckley

#31. I believe that life is a journey towards God, and that no one has the right to insist that you go a certain road.

Pat Buckley

#32. In love we are all brothers and sisters

Jeff Buckley

#33. Live as though life was created for you.

Ronda Buckley

#34. When all of this music sounds like you know what you want to say, then it will have been of all worth, ever. You will be something complete unto yourself, present and unique.

Jeff Buckley

#35. I believe that the whole human race is the family of God.

Pat Buckley

#36. Religion can be both good and bad - it is spirituality that counts.

Pat Buckley

#37. When it is not possible to reason with holy warriors, it is necessary to immobilize them or crush them.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#38. New York City is a place where everyone lived on top of each other, and that was exactly how Sabrina liked it. Living out in the middle of nowhere was dangerous and suspicious.

Michael Buckley

#39. Reagan is both too fatalistic and too modest to be a crudaser. He doesn't have that darkness around the eyes of a George McGovern.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#40. So what's with the crown?" Daphne asked.
Puck's eyes grew wide. "I'm the Prince of Fairies. Emperor of Pixies, Brownies, Hobgoblins, Elves and Gnomes. King of Tricksters and Prank-Players, spiritual leader to juvenile delinquents, layabouts and bad apples.

Michael Buckley

#41. Hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies: knock me your lobes.

Lord Buckley

#42. You can't ground us. We're homeless," Daphne said.

Michael Buckley

#43. The sobering anwer is yes - the white community is so entitled because ... it is the advanced race ... it is more important ... to affirm and live by civilized standards ... than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#44. Words are beautiful but restricted. They're very masculine, with a compact frame. But voice is over the dark, the place where there's nothing to hang on: it comes from a part of yourself that simply knows, expresses itself, and is.

Jeff Buckley

#45. Go get your gun because God won't show.
He sent a poet instead.
The Don Quixote of the ICU. Quite impressive for a cripple. Munchhausen by proxy of a muse.
Tempt not a desperate man. This split lip is for you. I traded it for an outdated tooth.

Keith Buckley

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

Christopher Buckley

#47. Freaky monsters were trying to kill us," Sabrina said. "Should I have just died out there so you could keep your clubhouse secret?"
"Absolutely!" the prince said.

Michael Buckley

#48. I certainly wish I were as good-looking as Aaron Eckhart.

Christopher Buckley

#49. There is a great power within that when used in beauty and immaculate purity can cure and heal and cause miracles. When you use it it spreads like a magic garden and when you do not use it it recedes from you.

Lord Buckley

#50. What was wrong with communism wasn't aberrant leadership, it was communism.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#51. 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

#52. If only he can get over becoming a NERD.

Michael Buckley

#53. Only government can cause inflation, preserve monopoly, and punish enterprise.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#54. And though the meaning fits, there's no relief in this. I miss my beautiful friend.

Jeff Buckley

#55. Did I dream you dreamed about me?

Tim Buckley

#56. If I could bottle this exact feeling I have right now, and sell it, I'd make millions." I said to Chet
"Well, unfortunately for you, but luckily for every other adult, someone already has. They called it alcohol.

Keith Buckley

#57. 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

#58. 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.

Christopher Buckley

#59. There is no one true church.

Pat Buckley

#60. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#61. I had much more fun criticizing than praising.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#62. Arlen Specter is the man who voted in favor of Bill Clinton during impeachment, voted against Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, voted against school choice for the District of Columbia, endorses an absolutist interpretation of abortion rights. He is bright and he is tough and he belongs elsewhere.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#63. I believe in people, especially suffering people.

Pat Buckley

#64. To be cool is to believe. To stay cool is to have the sweet fragments of serenity rock your wig away.

Lord Buckley

#65. 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

#66. Kiss me, please kiss me
But kiss me out of desire, babe, and not consolation
You know it makes me so angry 'cause i know that in time
I'll only make you cry, this is our last goodbye.

Jeff Buckley

#67. This, it seemed, was just what happened when you left someone. They disappeared behind you like the wake of a boat.

Jennifer E. Smith

#68. I can clear a dinner table in less than 60 seconds, moaning like a dockyard Elijah about the deficit and the inevitable reckoning.

Christopher Buckley

#69. Your real name is a mortal name. Now you need one that is immortal, the one that takes the high stage and plays above the rest. You can't be immortal and mortal at the same time.

Keith Buckley

#70. I'm lying in my bed, blanket is warm, this body will never keep me safe from harm. I still feel your hair, black ribbons of coal. Touch my skin to keep me whole. If only you'd come back to me. To feel you at my side, wouldn't need no Mojo Pin to keep me satisfied.

Jeff Buckley

#71. 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

#72. I have seen whole families wiped put by this

Heath Buckley

#73. We'll probably have to play the perfect game.

Tim Buckley

#74. 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

#75. 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

#76. It is widely known that whenever Senator Johnson feels the urge to act the statesman at the cost of a little political capital," WFB wrote in June 1958, "he lies down until he gets over it.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#77. Feminism - the word - can give us a handle, a rallying point, a common ground, and help us build a bridge. Why not claim the gift of the word as a place to begin?

Betty Buckley

#78. I'll rise like an ember in your name.

Jeff Buckley

#79. Maybe one of the monsters ate him," Daphne whimpered.
"That would be awesome," Puck said.
Sabrina flashed him an angry look.
"Awesome in a terrible, heartbreakingly tragic way," Puck continued.

Michael Buckley

#80. Look, I know you think I have a coke problem but I do not. I can quit any time I run out.

Keith Buckley

#81. Above all do not give yourself airs. Breaking the moment of past habits is the challenge here: In the life of the spirit you are always at the beginning.

Jeff Buckley

#82. I entered Yale in the fall of 1951, and about November of that year, Bill Buckley published 'God and Man at Yale.'

M. Stanton Evans

#83. Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#84. In the last analysis, of course, an oath will encourage fidelity in office only to the degree that officeholders continue to believe that they cannot escape ultimate accountability for a breach of faith.

James L. Buckley

#85. The word, and the concept of feminism, was a gift because it gave me a sense of identity and a way of defining how I wished to live my life.

Betty Buckley

#86. I resent the fact that a parental warning sticker has to be included on an album as cover art. To me that's censorship.

Jeff Buckley

#87. Broadway has changed tremendously from the early days when the shows were referred to as musical comedies. Musical Theater is now a more expanded art form. Back then, singer/actors were not the norm. From the 60's to now, it is necessary to do it all to be a consummate Broadway performer.

Betty Buckley

#88. Marijuana is not much more difficult to obtain than beer. The reason for this is that a liquor store selling beer to a minor stands to lose its liquor license. Marijuana salesmen don't have expensive overheads, and so are not easily punished.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#89. If you want to be happy you have to work to make it happen. You can't just wish for it and you can't put it in the hands of other people.

Michael Buckley

#90. The suits made hits and created stars because they knew something. The suits had been around the block and back, having experienced, firsthand, everyone from Jimmy Dorsey to Jimi Hendrix to Jeff Buckley to J. Lo. I trusted them because they earned that trust, at least on a purely musical level.

Anonymous

#91. Turn your head away from the screen, my friend. It will tell you nothing more.

Jeff Buckley

#92. I hope when I'm on my deathbed, people forgive me, because there is a lot to forgive.

Christopher Buckley

#93. Nothing like a puppet to give you the willies.

Michael Buckley

#94. Myself, I'm a post-ideological conservative.

Christopher Buckley

#95. 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

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

Christopher Buckley

#97. I actually prefer female voices to listen to, mostly, but among the male singers whose voices I like are Jeff Buckley, Art Garfunkel, that sort of voice. Contemporary crooners rather than rockers.

Gregory Maguire

#98. I surrendered who I was to who you are..

Jeff Buckley

#99. Our stories are different; our pain is the same.

Betty Buckley

#100. 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