Brian S. Wise

“[John Edwards] is the man that Rielle Hunter called 'real and authentic,' which tells us all we need to know about her mental abilities. This is why she can't figure out why he picked her. He could have had a multitude of sweet young things but he chose a 42-year-old who is one bleach job away from turning into one big split end, because his tumescent ego demands that he be the pretty one.”
― Florence King

“By the age of twenty-five, [Louis T. Wigfall] had managed to squander his considerable inheritance, settle three affairs of honor on the dueling ground, fight in a ruthless military campaign against the Seminoles, consume a small lakeful of bourbon, win an enviable reputation in whorehouses throughout the South, and get hauled before a judge on charges of murder. Three years after that, he took the next logical step and went into Texas politics.”
― Adam Goodheart, 1861: The Civil War Awakening

“I have changed my mind on a number of things, including almost everything having to do with Cuba, but the idea that we should be grateful for having been spared, and should shower our gratitude upon the supposed Galahad of Camelot for his gracious lenience in opting not to commit genocide and suicide, seemed a bit creepy. When Kennedy was shot the following year, I knew myself somewhat apart from this supposedly generational trauma in that I felt no particular sense of loss at the passing of such a high-risk narcissist. If I registered any emotion, it was that of mild relief.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“The vanity extended most of all to his library, arguably the real love of Cicero's life. It is difficult to name anything in which he took more pleasure, aside possibly evasion of the sumptuary laws. Cicero liked to believe himself wealthy. He prided himself on his books. He needed no further reason to dislike Cleopatra: intelligent women who had better libraries than he did offended him on three counts.”
― Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra: A Life