The Coup Quotes

#1. In two years, there were 22 military coups d'etat, essentially in Africa and the third world. The coup d'etat of Algiers, in 1965, is what opened the path.

Ahmed Ben Bella

#2. To fight adversity, to improvise, to solve problems, and to save the coup, I had gathered all my senses into unusual configurations, which made me grow wild and enhanced my perceptions.

Philippe Petit

#3. To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.

Pablo Picasso

#4. If I begin my book with a review of the coup, it is only to show that my abiding interests for Australia did not end with it. They shall end only with a long and fortunate life.

Gough Whitlam

#5. The opponents of perestroika had suffered a defeat, and then they organized the coup.

Mikhail Gorbachev

#6. One gift, one time--that's bribery. Lots of gifts over a long time--that's politics.'-- Roland Vanatua, from The Coup

Jamie Malanowski

#7. Most thoughtful,"...[he said] politely. This cheerfulness was ambiguous, Had she determined to ignore ...[the] coup entirely--an established tactic, most irritating to the innovator but hard to sustain over long periods of time--or had she already evolved her counter-strategy?

Tom Holt

#8. I was even accused of teaching the chimps how to fish for termites which I mean that would have been such a brilliant coup.

Jane Goodall

#9. I was shooting a bikini promotion in Mahe in the Seychelles in 1980 when there was a military coup and I, along with a roomful of other people, ended up being kidnapped and held hostage at gunpoint in a windowless room with no ventilation for 36 hours.

Brigitte Nielsen

#10. If you think that a coup to overthrow the elected government is a coup everywhere, then you should remember how elections in Ukraine took place in 2004, how elections in Georgia took place in 2003, when the elections results have been torn and thrown away by revolutionary action.

Sergei Lavrov

#11. The word he used was coup, and I'm not speaking French just to arouse you.

Jim Lynch

#12. In 2003, I warned of a 'creeping coup' in Russia against the forces of democracy and market capitalism in Russia.

John McCain

#13. Coup d'Oeil Concept A French expression which loosely translated means the "strike of the eye" or the "vision behind the eye." The closest English concept would be that of intuition. Intuition is defined as "perceptive insight" or "the power to discern the true nature of a situation.

Charles "Sid" Heal

#14. A coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder.

Edward Luttwak

#15. It's a coup by the GOP to grab the governorship to California to make this place a safe haven for George W. Bush in 2004. It's incredible when you think about it. The recall cost the state $100 million.

Al Jardine

#16. It's really funny if two women stand on the House floor. There are usually at least two men who go by and say, 'What is this, a coup?' They're almost afraid to see us in public together.

Patricia Schroeder

#17. On Aug. 19, 1953, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran became the first victim of a C.I.A. coup. Ten months later, on June 27, 1954, President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala became the second.

Stephen Kinzer

#18. Modern Architecture died in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 15, 1972, at 3.32 p.m. (or thereabouts), when the infamous Pruitt Igoe scheme, or rather several of its slab blocks, were given the final coup de grace by dynamite.

Charles Jencks

#19. Fascism in Uruguay did not begin just with the military coup of 1973, but years before, even when there was still a government with a constitution and parliament.

Jose Mujica

#20. I truly do believe that history teaches that weakness arouses evil, and whether it be the horrific attack in France, the inspired attacks here in the United States, the instability in Turkey that led to a coup.

Mike Pence

#21. To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.

Barbara Tuchman

#22. The 1953 coup was a catastrophe which slammed him [Mosaddegh] to floor, and from which Iran never fully recovered

Christopher De Bellaigue

#23. This is a revolution not a coup . It is either unconditional surrender or we will take down the garrison

Che Guevera

#24. One didn't discuss plans for a coup while standing in the elevator, no matter who owned the building.

D.B. Reynolds

#25. Jack Kennedy very much enjoyed Fletcher Knebel's thriller 'Seven Days in May,' later a film. The story: a jingo based on the real-life Admiral Arthur Radford plans a military coup to take over the White House.

Gore Vidal

#26. Organizing a coup was not the same as wanting one.

David Pietrusza

#27. Vanity finds in self-love so powerful an ally that it storms, as it were, by a coup de main,, the citadel of our heads, where, having blinded the two watchmen, it readily descends into the heart.

Charles Caleb Colton

#28. Gadhafi's vicious regime has left Libya far worse than he found it on the day of his coup in 1969.

Elliott Abrams

#29. I was deposed by a coup d'etat, by friends that I trusted and aided by the American Government.

Ferdinand Marcos

#30. It would undoubtedly be prudent for neither of us to attempt a sexual coup on one another again from the evidence of our reactions. Most definitely any outcome of an intended purpose would bound to be foiled from lack of focus.

Scarlett Dawn

#31. There should be no romanticism that international public opinion or even international diplomatic and economic pressure can defeat a coup without determined and strong defense by the attacked society itself

Gene Sharp

#32. It is ironic that a nation that has never experienced a coup d'etat should be so obsessed with the idea of conspiracy.

Gore Vidal

#33. I never staged a coup. They picked me up. Like I say, they forced me to become premier, maybe hoping that by that way, they send me to the electric chair.

Nguyen Cao Ky

#34. I'm very disappointed by the mature-democracy countries. I was ousted by a coup d'etat.

Thaksin Shinawatra

#35. Before the military coup in Chile, we had the idea that military coups happen in Banana Republics, somewhere in Central America. It would never happen in Chile. Chile was such a solid democracy. And when it happened, it had brutal characteristics.

Isabel Allende

#36. Naturally, I asked him what it'd been like to live through Pinochet's coup and the fall of Allende. Naturally, he regarded me with an expression of utter boredom; then he said:
'Like a Marx Brothers' movie, but with corpses. Unimaginable pandemonium.

Javier Cercas

#37. All democracies turn into dictatorships - but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea ...

George Lucas

#38. In the classic outline of a failed coup, the plotters had sought to oust the president without first securing the support of the military and the civil service, and without seizing the headquarters of the state broadcaster.

Tim Shipman

#39. The greatest propaganda coup of the American Right has been to convince its citizens that we are in the grip of a liberal conspiracy.

Shane Smith

#40. After the 1960 royal coup, I spent time in India - including three years in prison.

Sushil Koirala

#41. The Washington Times wrote a story questioning the authenticity of some of the suggestions made about me in Silent Coup. But as a believer in the First Amendment, I believe they have more than a right to air their views.

Bob Woodward

#42. There are no tragedies in life, only violent coup d'etats on the state of irrational optimism

Dean Cavanagh

#43. So the story of Wild Fox Kang's attempted coup and murder of Cixi lay in darkness and obscurity for nearly a century, until the 1980s, when Chinese scholars discovered in Japanese archives the testimony of the designated killer, Bi, which established beyond doubt the existence of the plot.

Jung Chang

#44. Nancy fell in love with Viola at first sight of her. A coup de foudre, she said, more intense and overwhelming than any form of romantic love. Mother and daughter were each a world to the other, complete and unassailable.

Kate Atkinson

#45. NATO cannot accept that the unconstitutional coup in Ukraine has not led to the subjugation of the whole Ukrainian nation.

Sergei Lavrov

#46. If there's 10,000 people looking at the stocks and trying to pick winners, one in 10,000 is going to score, by chance alone, a great coup, and that's all that's going on. It's a game, it's a chance operation, and people think they are doing something purposeful ... but they're really not.

Merton Miller

#47. I was the deputy Chairman of the Democratic Union of the Pacific, and we started at 8 I think and I was called to the telephone and to be told there's a coup, the government has been overthrown - it was round about 9, 10 when the Parliament sat they had done then.

Kamisese Mara

#48. You have to be a dead-eyed dirty-souled maniac to want to spend your extended life trading punches with other maniacs. Once you've seized that power, there's no getting off the merry-go-round. You fight like hell just to hold on or you get shoved off.

Scott Lynch

#49. On a Tuesday, September 11th, 1973, we had the military coup in Chile that forced me to leave my country eventually. And then, on a Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, we had the terrorist attack in the United States.

Isabel Allende

#50. The American audience has really opened up to women being A.) funny and B.) kinda crude. 'Bridesmaids' is R-rated, and I think it was a major coup for women to have an R-rated comedy that did really well. Same as 'Bad Teacher.'

Chris Pratt

#51. The turning point for me was when the Supreme Court installed Bush in 2000, even though he got half a million votes less nationally than Gore. It was nothing more than a bloodless coup and that's when I really started paying attention.

Mark Edwards

#52. Electing a black president was probably the only coup America could pull off.

Nick Nolte

#53. Anslinger's reefer madness did not caution even the seeds of efficient, intelligent, ruthless action ... The same goes for Hoover, sniveling Nixon, the whole miserable, wretchedly evil lot of them ... not a man among them who could have pulled off a successful coup in a banana republic.

William S. Burroughs

#54. Pinochet took power in a 1973 military coup that the United States supported.

Elliott Abrams

#55. Some consider the removal of Dr. Mohammed Morsi a coup by the army against an elected president. Others treat it as the second revolution, or the continuation of the January 25, 2011, revolution.

Ahmed Zewail

#56. The challenge is to lend conviction even to the voices which advocate views I find personally abhorrent, whether they are political Islamists or officers justifying a coup.

Orhan Pamuk

#57. The period that I could consider the most important in my literary work came about beginning with the Revolution, and in a certain way, developed as a consequence of the Revolution. But it was also a result of the counterrevolutionary coup of November 1975.

Jose Saramago

#58. You can do this (this thing, where your body will cease to produce hormones and your skin, hair, muscles and bones ... basically every part of you will notice, go into withdrawals, and stage a coup). Be prepared for this mentally, and you'll own this thing.

Lisa Jey Davis

#59. When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

Thomas Sowell

#60. Mac's heart thumped against her gold, initaled locked. In fact fact, her heart hadn't beated that quickly since she was thirty seconds away from being the top bidder for vintage YSL lace-up heels on eBay. This was a coup.

Zoey Dean

#61. He did not have the sort of looks suited for stakeouts or tailing people. As much as he might try to lose himself in a crowd, he was as inconspicuous as a centipede in a coup of yogurt.

Haruki Murakami

#62. Early on in my life I comprehended that death is the most tragic event in our life. Events of early Monday July 14, 1958 [Coup in Iraq] had convinced me that hate is the most destructive force in our life.

Ala Bashir

#63. Shouldn't the General Assembly adopt a declaration on the inadmissibility of interference into domestic affairs of sovereign states and nonrecognition of coup d'etats as a method of the change of power?

Sergei Lavrov

#64. Most governments in the United States in a hundred years have not respected the peoples of Latin America. They have sponsored coup d'etats, assassinations.

Hugo Chavez

#65. The film, even when we were making it in that budget range, which was really a coup - we got it made because we pitched it to the studio head, Joe Roth.

Alex Winter

#66. Yes, Hart, I went commando to a diplomatic function," Harry said, and then motioned to his body. "And now, as you can see, I'm going Spartan so a midget can whack me with a stick." He bent and picked up his Bongka. "Honestly, Hart. Help me out here. Focus a little.

John Scalzi

#67. Next time I go into the action - I shall command a hundred men - & possibly I may bring off some coup. Besides I shall have some other motive for taking chances than merely "love of adventure".

Winston Churchill

#68. More than ever, Romania now needs to see that a force exists that puts an end to Ponta and Antonescu's abuses and coup d'etat. This force is none other than the Romanian people.

Traian Basescu

#69. There is a frustration too, that at moments when there's not a coup, when there are not people in the streets, that the country disappears from people's consciousness.

Edwidge Danticat

#70. In February 2004, the two traditional torturers of Haiti - France and the United States - combined to back a military coup and send President Aristide off to Africa. The U.S. denies him permission to return to the entire region.

Noam Chomsky

#71. I am frightened. I have known fear before, but there was always an escape; even during the terror of the military coup there was the salvation of exile. Now I am in a blind alley with all doors closed to hope, and I don't know how to handle so much fear.

Isabel Allende