Christopher Buckley Quotes

It's almost impossible to be funnier than the people in Washington.

I devised the Bert Lance Toe Test then - you go out on the front porch of the house, turn 'The Washington Post' over with your big toe, and if your name's above the fold, you know you're not going to have a good day.

In a weird way, our satirists probably have the most complicated, nuanced views of our politics now - Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver. I don't know what that says about our country.

I don't really have funny things to say about politics. I wish I did, but I don't.

Like they said about The West Wing, you can't do a show about Washington until you can.

You know, I'm a comedian the same as Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. We all came up the same way. The three of us have interest in politics; I call us fundits, we're fundits! We're not pundits!

Ideology isn’t driving the dynamic in Washington, it’s the desire to stay in power.

Comedy has become, I think, a very important branch of public intellectualism. But it still ain't Washington.

Politics is a thing that is kind of the same over and over and over again. But we have to find new ways of poking fun at it and letting the air out of people and satirizing things that are worthy of satire.

I think it's probably much easier to do political comedy from a two-party point of view, in that the majority have some sense of what it means to be one or the other.

I've never really worked on them. Just once in a while one hits me and makes me laugh. My Al Gore was sort of like a gay Gomer Pyle.

I never wanted to do political satire because it seems too surface to me.

It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.

Politics as battle has given way to politics as spectacle.

It is very true that D.C. often operates in the land of caricature.

I'm a politician, and as you know, politicians are rarely very funny.

Satire is fascinating stuff. It's deadly serious, and when politics begin to break down, there is a drift towards satire, because it's the only thing that makes any sense.

Ross Perot. I could have had a ball with him.

For me, my party views don't advance my narrative. Until I can find a way to write political satire like my idols Christopher Buckley or P.J. O'Rourke, I'll simply say what team I play for and leave it at that.

Jon Stewart kills me. I love him. And Bill Maher. He does an hour on HBO. But entirely political. It is awfully rough, but he does make me laugh.

Political satire is a serious thing. In democratic newspapers throughout the world there are daily cartoons that often are not even funny, as is the case especially in many English-language newspapers. Instead, they contain a political message, and the artist takes full responsibility.

It's almost like he's started to sound even more exotic the more people started doing him. I don't know why, but there's just something about Al Gore that makes me laugh.

I know these jokes aren't great, ladies and gentlemen, see this is the problem you run into when you're between impeachments.

No one will ever accuse James Carville of taking himself seriously.

I joke with my kids, who love history, that I'll be the only governor to be elected twice in his first term.