“To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client; still, one must make the best of the case, for the purposes of Providence.”

—  John Updike

Act II
Buchanan Dying (1974)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client; still, o…" by John Updike?
John Updike photo
John Updike 240
American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, an… 1932–2009

Related quotes

Cher photo

“You don't have to be smart to act — look at the outgoing president of the United States.”

Cher (1946) American singer and actress

Remark (December 1988), reported in Brewer's Cinema (1995)

Samuel Johnson photo

“A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1754, p. 72 (n. 4)
Referring to critics
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Bob Dylan photo

“Even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Donald J. Trump photo
Adlai Stevenson photo

“The best reason I can think of for not running for President of the United States is that you have to shave twice a day.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

As quoted in Bartlett's Unfamiliar Quotations (1971) by Leonard Louis Levinson, p. 237

Aneurin Bevan photo

“The spectacle therefore afforded us by the United States is one of technical brilliance and social blindness.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

In Place of Fear (William Heinemann Ltd, 1952), p. 162
1950s

Charles Murray photo

“The United States Congress, acting with large bipartisan majorities, at the urging of the President, enacted as the law of the land that all children are to be above average.”

Charles Murray (1943) American libertarian political scientist, author, and columnist

Regarding the No Child Left Behind Act.
The Age of Educational Romanticism http://www.aei.org/article/27962, The New Criterion, Thursday, May 1, 2008.

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“The purpose of the United States, in stating these proposals, is simple.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, The Chance for Peace (1953)
Context: The purpose of the United States, in stating these proposals, is simple. [... ] They aspire to this: the lifting, from the backs and from the hearts of men, of their burden of arms and of fears, so that they may find before them a golden age of freedom and of peace.

Robert Graves photo
Gianfranco Fini photo

“I don't think that the United States are ready for a presidency as the one of Obama, at least because he would be the first black president.”

Gianfranco Fini (1952) Italian politician

interview http://www.rai.tv/mppopupvideo/0,,News%5E0%5E64456,0.html by Gianni Riotta Tv7, RaiUno channel, 7 March 2008.

Related topics