Nixon was a crook, of course, but he was also a rabid football fan – and he knew the game, which still astounds me, but I have always had a soft spot for him because of it.

I kept a very full diary of my relationship with Nixon, for some strange reason, until he became president.

Nixon represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise.

I’d sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.

When Reagan left office, he was the most unpopular living president, apart from Nixon, even below Carter. If you look at his years in office, he was not particularly popular. He was more or less average. He severely harmed the American economy.

You and I are stuck with the necessity of taking the worst of two evils or none at all. So-I’m taking the immature Democrat as the best of the two. Nixon is impossible.

Everybody has a little bit of Watergate in him.

Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.

Nixon is one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.

The trouble with Nixon is that he’s a serious politics junkie. He’s totally hooked and like any other junkie, he’s a bummer to have around, especially as President.

Nixon was no more a saint than he was a great president.

It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.

Even the most cynical can hardly be surprised by the antics of Nixon and his accomplices as they are gradually revealed. It matters little, at this point, where the exact truth lies in the maze of perjury, evasion, and of contempt for the normal – hardly inspiring – standards of political conduct.

You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait till I whup George Foreman’s behind.

Nixon was a bad loser. He hated losing worse than death, and that is why I enjoyed him. We were both football fans, both addicts; and on some days, nothing else mattered.

I had a soft-spot in my heart for Ronald Reagan, if only because he was a sportswriter in his youth.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.