SOME NEW QUOTES HAVE BEEN ADDED:
“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
Some of Buckley’s best lines were uttered in court during a lengthy libel trial in the ’80s against National Review brought by the Liberty Lobby, which was then countersued by National Review. (The Liberty Lobby lost and NR won.) During the trial, Buckley was frequently irritated by attorney Mark Lane’s questions, prompting him to respond in court in answer to one of them: “I decline to answer that question; it’s too stupid.”
About the current state of affairs in higher education, he once remarked that he’d: “rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the 2000 member faculty of Harvard University.”
On being asked if he’d called Jesse Jackson an ignoramus: “If I didn’t, I should have.”
When Buckley ran, as a third party candidate, for Mayor of New York City, and was asked what he’d do if he won: “Demand a recount.”
The end of his 1970 Playboy interview, coming after a long, intense grilling about Vietnam, civil rights, Communism, etc.:
PLAYBOY: Don’t most dogmas, theological as well as ideological, crumble sooner or later?
BUCKLEY: Most, but not all.
PLAYBOY: How can you be so sure?
BUCKLEY: I know that my Redeemer liveth.
