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Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try. ---in Good Housekeeping

Peggy Noonan

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Peggy Noonan
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: August 7
Author
Journalist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Kind
Cowardly
Good
Cynicism
Realistic
Tough
Wisdom
Means
Housekeeping
Mean
Unrealistic
Trying
Cynic

More quotes by Peggy Noonan

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Don't fall in love with politicians, they're all a disappointment. They can't help it, they just are.
Peggy Noonan
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At some point, don't voters start to see all of public life as one big polluted river? And if they do, don't they stop saying things like That's a busted tire floating by and That's an old shoe?
Peggy Noonan
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[democrats] have become the party of snobs. You have become the party of Americans who think they're better than other Americans.
Peggy Noonan
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When you forget yourself and your fear, when you get beyond self-consciousness because your mind is thinking about what you are trying to communicate, you become a better communicator
Peggy Noonan
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The tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.
Peggy Noonan
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My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage.
Peggy Noonan
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It's better for the country when each party looks like it stands for something serious, for some big things, but they're not narrow and they're not bought.
Peggy Noonan
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In the 1950s and '60s the [democrat] party included many obviously earnest and thoughtful liberals who supported goals that were in line with and expressions of serious beliefs. They believed that America was an exceptional country.
Peggy Noonan
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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.
Peggy Noonan
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Boundaries aren't all bad. That's why there are walls around mental institutions.
Peggy Noonan
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[On President Clinton's address:] It was the worst inaugural address of our lifetime, and I think the only controversy will be between those who say it was completely and utterly banal and those who say, 'Well, not completely and utterly.
Peggy Noonan
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Wit penetrates humor envelops. Wit is a function of verbal intelligence humor is imagination operating on good nature.
Peggy Noonan
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Politicians, please, think of yourselves! Move to help Terri Schiavo, and no one will be mad at you, and you'll keep a human being alive.
Peggy Noonan
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Resentment isn't a magnetic personal style.
Peggy Noonan
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The Democratic Party will now stick with its guy forever, no matter how harmful he is. Perhaps you call that loyalty, and perhaps there's something to it, but a bigger part, I believe, is that you have come to think that winning is everything-that victory is the purpose of politics.
Peggy Noonan
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We are all afraid. That's the thing that unites all truly successful people: fear, fear of failing, fear of criticism, fear of letting down the team in some way. That why they try so hard, that's why they pay attention to detail and try to get every possible duck in a row. It's fear
Peggy Noonan
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I was sailing from tedium to apathy with a side trip to torpor.
Peggy Noonan
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What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water? What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No.1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?
Peggy Noonan
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The first snow always startles. It covers the tricycle in the driveway, turning its frame into an abstact sculpture that says: See how quickly yesterday turns into today.
Peggy Noonan
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Ted Sorrenson, JFK's presidential speech writer, when asked how it came about that he wrote the ask not what you can do... speech, he would answer 'ask not.'
Peggy Noonan