Dave Barry Quotes

If you go with me on this one, 200 years from now, school will only remember the names of two great Republicans, Lincoln and Dirkson.

There founding fathers not only wanted no military alliances, but they wanted no standing army.

I'm not a Lincoln expert, rather a biographer who has had the pleasure of reading much of what has been written about him from his lifetime to this year of his bicentennial. Some advice: Don't try that unless you have at least five years available.

I think we have reason to thank God for Abraham Lincoln. With all his deficiencies, it must be admitted that he has grown continually.

Killing Lincoln is a must-read historical thriller. Bill O'Reilly recounts the dramatic events of the spring of 1865 with such exhilarating immediacy that you will feel like you are walking the streets of Washington DC on the night that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln. This is a hugely entertaining, heart-stopping read.

There have been many amazing Presidents in American history, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, all of whom I greatly admire.

Donald Trump will be the next president, the 45th president of the United States. And it will be up to him to set up a team that he thinks will serve him well and reflect his policies. It takes a while for people to reconcile themselves with that new reality. Hopefully, it's a reminder that elections matter. I think it's important for us to let him make his decisions, and I think the American people will judge over the course of the next couple of years whether they like what they see.

I like to read biographies of authors that I love, like Richard Yates. I also like to see what non-fiction authors are out there. My bible is Something Happened. It's one of the greatest books I've ever read. But if I don't read a Dostoevsky soon I'm going to kill myself.

Ronald Reagan fought for America. He loved America. He feared where the left, based on history, wanted to take the country.

Other than fiction and poetry I tend to read history.

I don't [even] know the number of books on Abraham Lincoln. Ten thousand, twelve thousand? I have seen various numbers. It seems like every generation is always trying to come to terms with Lincoln.

In particular, I wanted to help build a team behind Boris Johnson so that a politician who argued for leaving the European Union could lead us to a better future.

Barack Obama is putting his team together to take over the Administration. So far, he's got his mother-in-law, who is going to be living with him, and they are talking about Hillary for Secretary of State. You have your mother-in-law and Hillary Clinton. Sounds like smooth sailing to me.

I can't claim to be disenchanted "with the current state of fiction" because I read so little of it. My reading is mostly drawn to history.

The great example, the killer example in history, is of course Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator. Read his speeches. Read the debates. Wendell Phillips called him "the great slaver from Illinois."

I've seen Trump off the campaign trail, and I truly do believe that he has the leadership qualities and the vision to make America great again.

I don't like dynasty and legacy. But I think there's a period in the U.S. history where Bushes have been in the forefront.

The people of the United States are one of the people I most admire in the world. The only thing I don't understand is why a country that manages to do so well cannot do better in choosing its president.

I'm all about nonfiction. I rarely read fiction. I like to read about things that really happened, facts, real life situations. That's what inspires me.

George McGovern, for all his mistakes... understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon.

You want a leader, Western leader, English-speaking? Mitt Romney.

Statesmanship is developed in the hard knocks of general experience, private and public.

Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Faerie Queen for a stopgap, or a volume of Bishop Andrews's Sermons?

I read books I hate all the time, and I don't mention them or talk about them.

There are times when you have sharp elbows, and people are trying to muscle you out of certain meetings - because then people could leak to the press that you had a role in certain decisions. I, at twenty-six, was very impatient and didn't know how to keep my powder dry. I was running a team of seventy-five people when I had never been a boss. I was the worst boss ever.