Art Hoppe
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"Art Hoppe" was a popular columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle for more than 40 years. He was known for satirical and allegorical columns that skewered the self-important. Many columns featured whimsical characters such as expert-in-all-things Homer T. Pettibone and a presidential candidate named Nobody. Occasionally, Hoppe reined in his humor for poignant columns on serious topics, such as "To Root Against Your Country," a noted 1971 column against the Vietnam War. Hoppe began at the Chronicle as a copy boy in 1949 and was promoted to reporter before beginning his own column. At the peak of its popularity, Hoppe's column appeared in the Chronicle five days a week and was syndicated in more than 100 newspapers nationwide. His close friends included fellow columnists Russell Baker and Art Buchwald.

Hoppe received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in 1996. He died from complications of lung cancer in February 2000, aged 74, survived by his wife Gloria and four children.

More Art Hoppe on Wikipedia.

If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?

We ought to change the legend on our money from "In God We Trust" to "In Money We Trust"; Because, as a nation, we've got far more faith in money these days than we do in God.

Who knows? Maybe my life belongs to God. Maybe it belongs to me. But I do know one thing: I'm damned if it belongs to the government.

I hope that my achievements in life shall be these - that I will have fought for what was right and fair, that I will have risked for that which mattered, and that I will have given help to those who were in need, that I will have left the earth a better place for what I've done and who I've been.