"The facts of the matter are (that) I did not do any of the things of which I was accused by paid witnesses. But having said that, I'm not sitting here today pleading for the world to believe me because I've come to God. He knows what's in my heart; he knows the truth of the matter. And the witnesses who lied do as well."

"a small bewigged ferret"

"Whatever award is given for libel, being cross-examined by you would not make it enough money."

"I disapproved of the number of men she had traipsing into her bedroom and suggested she should have a turnstile on her bedroom door."

"A pervasive moral turpitude underlies South African society."

"to miik the citizens to the extent that they start mooing, is contrary to improving living standards."

"I'm impaled on the blue flames of his blowtorch eyes, you see."

"You'd have to be dead not to be impressed by his sincerity. But then didn't Oscar Wilde say say "The worst vice of the fanatic is his sincerity"."

"A black-belt bullshitter"

"The original of the yellow rose is clad (you've guessed it) in canary yellow. The lemon-meringue confection has been poured into yellow slacks and yellow shirt, an immaculate yellow-blonde barbie-doll with 'EFG- Follies-Girl' written all over her."

"It is her total professionalism and perennial striving for perfection that elevated Moira from the merely blonde to the maxi-talented."

"the little roly-poly Russian-born rebel of the canvas."

"The voice (sometimes an ominous rumble that sounds as though he's been gargling with pebbles, sometimes the bliss of Bailey's Irish Cream swirling lazily about a fine crystal goblet) crescendos almost imperceptibly."

"The happy-go-lucky barefoot kid who loved rugby, ice-cream-and-hot-chocolate sauce, staying at home for a braai and the flieks grew up into an international rugby player, idol of millions and South African cult figure..."

"As remote as the rings of Saturn... A man with his stubby million-rand finger perennially prodding the public's pulse, his eyes constantly roving the horizons of the future, Kerzner has the power of a Prometheus unbound."

"The First Law of Journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it."

"Alex kept the radical faith, steadily, constantly, going to the ends of the earth to cover the next story of revolt and revolution, going to the far corners of the United States to uncover the news that Americans were not taking it anymore. If a crowd had gathered, and if they were raising the red flag, or any flag of protest, that was enough for Alex. He would report their struggle, usually in The Nation, but also in the pages of The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, Esquire, the Village Voice and (for a brief period as remarkable as it was ironic) the Wall Street Journal."

"Cockburn’s personal history links him to the politics of the Communist Party, and there are still moments in his writing – debating the number of people estimated to have perished in Stalin’s gulags, claiming that ‘the Brezhnev years were a Golden Age for the Soviet working class’, when aspects of his father’s convictions can be glimpsed."

"No chord in populism reverberates more strongly than the notion that the robust common sense of an unstained outsider is the best medicine for an ailing polity. Caligula doubtless got big cheers from the plebs when he installed his horse as proconsul."

"There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world’s present warming trend."

"No one believes for a moment the embargo will prompt the Iraqi people to rise against Saddam Hussein."

"A "just war" is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience."

"The travel writer seeks the world we have lost — the lost valleys of the imagination."

"We all have to go one day, but pray God let it not be over Afghanistan. An unspeakable country filled with unspeakable people, sheepshaggers and smugglers, who have furnished in their leisure hours some of the worst arts and crafts ever to penetrate the occidental world. I yield to none in my sympathy to those prostrate beneath the Russian jackboot, but if ever a country deserved rape it’s Afghanistan. Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too."

"I live in Fresno which is a death sentence already."

"One day it was lies, lies, lies, real old-school Saigon-style lies about how everything's fine...and then wham, we take Mazar-i-Sharif and it's a toboggan ride to Kabul."

"Something you have to know about the US military is that it sucks at commando raids."

"That's a 7.76mm round, you idiots, if you fire it into the air it comes to earth you know not where, like on some little kid's soft-skulled head, and that's the end of the kid. They're too stupid to even figure that much out."

"The best war is when you can hate both sides."

"I said I would write a introduction on one condition, that you people don't send me emails telling me liking war is a sign of unhealthiness or some psychoanalytical crap. I'm a war nerd. A backseat sergeant. I know what I am."

"The acute threat of the climate crisis, which has brought record heat to many South American countries, meant the summit had to be more than a show of unity; it needed to produce concrete and continuous results to ensure the Amazon did not reach a point where it starts to dry up and die off, which scientists have warned is drawing closer."

"Recognises the role of tropical forest conservention for biodiversity, carbon sequestion and cooling, as well as its importance for social and economic development""

"It’s different now. The problem is more serious and more complex, but we have more experience and we know how to do it,”"

"The main reason is the decision of Lula to aim for zero deforestation. Since then, we have created new conservation units and indigenous territories that have produced some results … Now we need to move towards a new model of prosperity that is less predatory, less damaging to local people and the forest."

"I hope the next minister is not as radical as Marina. She was an obstacle to economic development in Brazil."

"Al Gore could really pollute a bathroom … Just look at the guy. If someone doesn't take away his pork 'n' beans, he's bound to get another one of those 'gut feelings' and mistake his own greenhouse gas production for science!"

"I think they just thought she would be a good kind of lightning rod. We did one or two rehearsals, and I know for a fact that people liked her legs."

"Oh god, she is feminism's worst nightmare."

"She has very passionate opinions...she's articulate, intelligent, and we get a lot of favorable mail about her."

"Sarkozy was elected last year by insisting on immigrants speaking French and insisting that they integrate into the French culture...Obama’s call for Americans to learn Spanish to accommodate the onslaught of Mexican immigrants makes the French government sound like Rush Limbaugh."

"Never has outright racism been so exciting or so chic — both here in America and abroad! Kumbaya! In fact, a German paper called him “the black JFK”, which is an insult to the late President Kennedy, who -- again, leaving aside the blatant racism here — was nowhere near as far left as Obama."

"While the Democratic-led congress hits a record low nine percent approval rating despite high pre-election hopes, the even further left-leaning embodiment of that epic failure is now shuffling around the globe, sending crowds into frenzies through speeches pimped out with eminently forgettable rhetoric that would make great political speechmakers like Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill scratch their heads."

"I don't really pay much attention to it anymore. It's pretty ridiculous. I view it as a giant graffiti board for people with axes to grind — or for guys named Jimbo Wales who want to dump their girlfriends."

"Well I think we do have to define torture. One man’s torture is another man’s CIA’s sponsored swim lesson."

"The Second Amendment was meant to give citizens the right to bear arms against the government, back when Uncle Sam's toys were as lame as yours… Handguns are sheer lunacy"

"For Dick Cheney, it must have felt just like any other day at the office: Folks who don't shave, don't bathe, and want him dead. Wow, feels just like back home!"

"Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad serves up a triple scoop of crazy, sprinkled with crazy, and topped off with warm crazy sauce."

"Fifty percent of people want to sleep with me, and the other 50 percent want to kill me."

"The life expectancy in Hong Kong is among the highest in the world … you can come to only one conclusion: we have the most environmentally friendly place for people, for executives, for Hong Kong people to live"

"People can go to the extreme like what we saw during the Cultural Revolution. For instance, in China, when people take everything into their own hands, then you cannot govern the place. … [It] was the people taking power into their own hands. Now that is what you mean by democracy if you take it to the full swing."