Considered one of the architects of the modern conservative movement, William F. Buckley, Jr. was infamous for his verbose and combative retorts.
William F. Buckley Jr. in his office at 150W. 35th Street, NYC. PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Falk/The New York Times
As founder of the National Review and host of the public affairs program “Firing Line” for over 30 years, Buckley was regarded as a prominent public intellectual. “Firing Line” guests included Huey P. Newton, Noam Chomsky, Christopher Hitchens, Muhammed Ali, Truman Capote, Jorge Luis Borges, Norman Mailer and many others, debating and discussing political and social issues.
His combative nature has been both praised and condemned, but his influence on modern day media and political rhetoric is undeniable. Here are ten insults from the provocateur.
“I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.”
― Attributed to William F. Buckley, Jr.
“I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.”
― Attributed to William F. Buckley, Jr.
“See, the trouble with you is that you get very resentful whenever anybody reminds you of what you say. If I said what you said, I’d feel the same way.”
― “Firing Line with William F. Buckley, Jr., The Lawyer’s Role”
“You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.”
“The Beatles are not merely awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music.”
― William F. Buckley, Jr. (2016). “A Torch Kept Lit: Great Lives of the Twentieth Century”, p.129, Crown Forum
“I am, I fully grant, a phenomenon, but not because of any speed in composition. I asked myself the other day, ‘Who else, on so many issues, has been so right so much of the time?’ I couldn’t think of anyone.”
– “On Writing Speedily,” first published in The New York Times Book Review (1986); republished in “Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography” by William F. Buckley, Jr., (p. 405), 2004
“I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.”
― Attributed to William F. Buckley, Jr.
“Everything I do and say and the way I do and say it annoys me.”
― As quoted in “William F. Buckley Jr., Rapier Wit Of the Right” by Henry Allen, www.washingtonpost.com. February 28, 2008
“Norman Mailer decocts matters of the first philosophical magnitude from an examination of his own ordure, and I am not talking about his books.”
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