“We live in a culture that discourages empathy. A culture that too often tells us our principal goal in life is to be rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained. Of course, cigarettes can help you achieve all those things, by filling those gaps where cultural empathy falls short. Helped me, anyway.”
“America is a land of big dreamers, big hopes. It is this hope that has sustained us through revolution and civil war, through depression and world war, and through our struggles for civil and social rights. That, and Big Tobacco. Can you imagine all that turmoil without easy and affordable access to nicotine? Not me.”
“Our enemies are fully aware that they can use oil as a weapon against America. And if we don’t take this threat as seriously as the bombs they build or the guns they buy, we will be fighting the War on Terror with one hand tied behind our back. That’s gonna make it really hard to light up.”
“I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. Anyone got a match?”
“If we aren’t willing to pay a price for our values, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all. When cigarettes went up past five dollars a pack, you didn’t see me cutting back, did you? Hell, I smoked even more, and will continue to do so just to drive that point home.”
“My wife has been my closest friend, my closest adviser. And she’s not somebody who looks to the limelight, or even is wild about me being in politics. And that’s a good reality check on me. When I go home, she wants me to be a good father and a good husband—which is why I rarely light up in the car, and have altogether stopped doing it in the house.”
“The issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues—unless I’m in the throes of an unmitigated nic fit. Then it’s like, ‘Yeah, OK, next question, asshole.’”
“We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential. And cigarettes, at least once, if for no other reason than just to know what they may or may not be missing.”
“What Washington needs is adult supervision. And ashtrays. Can we please get some more ashtrays, for Christ’s sake?”