Longevity, for a columnist, is a simple proposition: Once you start, you don't stop. You do it until you die or can no longer put a sentence together. It has always been my intention to die at my desk, although my most cherished ambition is to outlive the estate tax.
Interpretation
The commitment to writing is lifelong and enduring, reflecting the passion of a columnist.
In this quote, Charles Krauthammer expresses his unwavering dedication to the craft of writing, highlighting that once a columnist begins their journey, it becomes an integral part of their existence. He humorously notes his desire to continue writing until death and to outlast the financial burdens associated with legacy, illustrating both his love for the profession and his desire for longevity in life and career.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of pursuing one's passion, one could quote Krauthammer's views on commitment.
If you get a call to go to a certain place in the middle of the night to pick up stolen goods, and it turns out the stolen goods don't show up but the cops show up, I think you're going to have a very weak story saying, 'Well, I got swindled here.'
I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking.
The joy of losing consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no disappointment.
You're betraying your whole life if you don't say what you think - and you don't say it honestly and bluntly.
History has blessed us with all the freedom and advantages of multiculturalism. But it has also blessed us, because of the accident of our origins, with the linguistic unity that brings a critically needed cohesion to a nation as diverse, multiracial and multiethnic as America. Why gratuitously throw away that priceless asset? How mindless to call the desire to retain it 'racist.
When a party is in opposition, it opposes. That's its job. But when it comes to power, it must govern. Easy rhetoric is over, the press of reality becomes irresistible. By necessity, it adopts some of the policies it had once denounced. And a new national consensus is born.
As I descended into impassable rivers I no longer felt guided by the ferrymen.
I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.
Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!
Know what we did, Lucy? You and me? We spent our whole lives yearning. Isn't that the God damndest thing?
What is poor? We had food. We dressed well. We didn't have a lot, but what we had fit, and it was always neat.
The clock strikes off the hollow half-hours of all the life that is left to you, one by one.
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