Rick Perlstein

In politics, if you're explaining, you're loosing.

— Rick Perlstein

Fight injustice, that our children might be blessed.

— Rick Perlstein

“Richard Nixon was a serial collector of resentments.”

— Rick Perlstein

Do people still read before bed? I play 'Words With Friends.'

— Rick Perlstein

No historical analogies are exactly precise.

— Rick Perlstein

“insistent opening bark of the UPI’s Helen Thomas:”

— Rick Perlstein

“He (Nixon) needed someone with him so he could be alone.”

— Rick Perlstein

I'm just a Bolshevik with a laptop.

— Rick Perlstein

Only liberals know how to make you freer on the job, which is where most of us suffer the gravest indignities in…

— Rick Perlstein

Let there be a special place in Hell for pundits who make predictions.

— Rick Perlstein

Social conservatism, business conservatism: the one side constitutes the other, like some infernal Mobius strip.

— Rick Perlstein

“But honesty was a dull blade to take into a knife fight with Richard Nixon — who was simply willing to lie.”

— Rick Perlstein

I can't summarize my favorite movie, Jacques Tati's 'Play Time.' You just have to see it.

— Rick Perlstein

Ive summarized dozens of books in my literary career; its become rather second nature.

— Rick Perlstein

I'm a historian. The act of predicting the future discomfits me, in any event - and the bigger the prediction, the more…

— Rick Perlstein

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature.

— Rick Perlstein

When you're a writer, you never know which of your pieces are going to gain a toehold and which will not, and…

— Rick Perlstein

While Obama might not push college education exclusively, like most Democrats he does oversell it and does shortchange the alternatives. And millions…

— Rick Perlstein

Indeed, it was largely the clubbiness of the Washington village press corps that let Nixon get away with Watergate and still win…

— Rick Perlstein

One thing Republicans understand: In American elections, you have to choose from among only two people - not between the perfect and…

— Rick Perlstein

History does not repeat itself. Nor does it unfold in cycles. The real future is contingent, rich beyond imagining, a perennial gobsmack,…

— Rick Perlstein

I love trade magazines - any trade's magazine: by entering into what is taken for granted in a world not your own,…

— Rick Perlstein

Chicago's privatization mania began during Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration, which ran from 1989 to 2011. Under his successor, Rahm Emanuel, the…

— Rick Perlstein

My liberal friends love to dismiss Reagan. You know, they'll say something like, 'Oh, didn't he, like, only read one-page memos when…

— Rick Perlstein

“Some days there were more police in schools than students. Rumors spread that armed black marauders would ride through their neighborhoods shooting…

— Rick Perlstein

It is a lesson of the sixties: liberals get in the biggest political trouble - whether instituting open housing, civilian compliant review…

— Rick Perlstein

The only times during my religious instruction I remember hearing God's name invoked with any sincere conviction at all was in the…

— Rick Perlstein

“Nixon was becoming a discombobulated president, politically on the run. His interior secretary, Walter Hickel, posted a letter to the president that…

— Rick Perlstein

Whatever you think about his intelligence, what's unquestionable is that Reagan had extraordinary emotional intelligence. He could sense the temperature of a…

— Rick Perlstein

Conservatism is, among many other things, a culture. The most important glue binding it together is a shared sense of cultural grievance…

— Rick Perlstein

Ronald Reagan knew audiences. It was a key element of his political genius. One of the things at which brilliant politicians are…

— Rick Perlstein

The fact is that the Democratic Party in modern times has always had a conservative wing, one frequently as strong or stronger…

— Rick Perlstein

“But they could be frightening, too. “Watching Watergate in Archie Bunker Country,” said the cover of the June 18 issue of New…

— Rick Perlstein

Bill de Blasio was swept to the New York mayoralty on the promise of getting Gracie Mansion out from under the thumb…

— Rick Perlstein

In American religious history, theological qualms tend to get pushed aside when politics intervenes.

— Rick Perlstein

There's no question that Kennedy was an utter failure as a passer of laws during his proverbial thousand days.

— Rick Perlstein

Economic issues are a subset of social justice. Social justice is unimaginable without economic justice. Isn't that obvious?

— Rick Perlstein

“Rebelling against the status quo was one of the definitions of conservatism.”

— Rick Perlstein

I cant summarize my favorite movie, Jacques Tatis Play Time. You just have to see it.

— Rick Perlstein

I'm reverent toward my sources. History is a team sport, and references are how you support your teammates.

— Rick Perlstein