This is a world inhabited not by people who have to be persuaded to believe but by people who want an excuse to believe.

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

It's great to be with William Buckley, because you don't have to think. He takes a position and you automatically take the opposite one and you know you're right.

The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations... But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.

From the fact of general well-being came the new position of the poor. They were now in most communities a minority. The voice of the people was now the voice of relative affluence. Politicians in pursuit of votes could be expected to have a diminishing concern for the very poor. Compassion would have to serve instead - an uncertain substitute.

This is a world inhabited not by people who have to be persuaded to believe but by people who want an excuse to believe.

One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the realization that such people rarely read.