To the reactionary ear every whispered criticism of the elite classes has always sounded like the opening shot of an uprising.

Orthodoxy: That peculiar condition where the patient can neither eliminate an old idea nor absorb a new one.

No matter how I'm doing financially, the Depression has never disappeared from my consciousness. To this day, I hate waste. When neckties went from narrow to wide, I kept all my old ones until the style went back to narrow.

The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people, and is a Tory by nature.

The Barry Goldwater movement excited the depths because the apocalypse was brought more near, and like millions of other whites, I had been leading a life which was a trifle too pointless and a trifle too full of guilt and my gullet was close to nausea with the empty promises of an empty liberal center.

Ribbons a-flutter and orchids a-tremble, Yearly the vigilant Daughters assemble, Affirming in fervid and firm resolutions Their permanent veto on all revolutions.

All reactionaries are paper tigers.

We have become a conservative country, despite our worldwide reputation for seeking novelty, in that we are unable to envisage alternative futures for ourselves.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.