Quotes by Noonan, Peggy

"My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage."

Noonan, Peggy on age and aging   

"Remember the waterfront shack with the sign FRESH FISH SOLD HERE. Of course it's fresh, we're on the ocean. Of course it's for sale, we're not giving it away. Of course it's here, otherwise the sign would be someplace else. The final sign: FISH."

Noonan, Peggy on editing and editors   

"If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to -- and you will -- leave, and be something else."

Noonan, Peggy on government   

"Most people aren't appreciated enough, and the bravest things we do in our lives are usually known only to ourselves. No one throws ticker tape on the man who chose to be faithful to his wife, on the lawyer who didn't take the drug money, or the daughter who held her tongue again and again. All this anonymous heroism."

Noonan, Peggy on heroes and heroism
3 fans of this quote   

"If you commit a big crime then you are crazy, and the more heinous the crime the crazier you must be. Therefore you are not responsible, and nothing is your fault."

Noonan, Peggy on insanity   

"Now he is a statesman, when what he really wants is to be what most reporters are, adult delinquents."

Noonan, Peggy on journalism and journalists   

"You don't have to be old in America to say of a world you lived in: That world is gone."

Noonan, Peggy on modern and modernism   

"Sincerity and competence is a strong combination. In politics, it is everything."

Noonan, Peggy on politics   

"Don't fall in love with politicians, they're all a disappointment. They can't help it, they just are."

Noonan, Peggy on politics   

"Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen."

Noonan, Peggy on politics   

"I love eulogies. They are the most moving kind of speech because they attempt to pluck meaning from the fog, and on short order, when the emotions are still ragged and raw and susceptible to leaps."

Noonan, Peggy on praise   

"Great speeches have always had great soundbites. The problem now is that the young technicians who put together speeches are paying attention only to the soundbite, not to the text as a whole, not realizing that all great soundbites happen by accident, which is to say, all great soundbites are yielded up inevitably, as part of the natural expression of the text. They are part of the tapestry, they aren't a little flower somebody sewed on."

Noonan, Peggy on quotations   

"Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy."

Noonan, Peggy on speech   

"Read good, big important things."

Noonan, Peggy on books - reading   

"Part of courage is simple consistency."

Noonan, Peggy on courage