Politics & Power Quote by Edward Koch

Koch lands the joke with a politician's most recognizable liability: the mouth. On the surface, it's a diet tip dressed up as blunt common sense. Underneath, it's a clean little dissection of political life, where talking is both weapon and weakness. "Close your mouth" works because it yokes two kinds of appetite together: the literal craving for food and the professional craving for attention, airtime, and control of the room. The punchline isn't just that politicians talk too much; it's that their entire job incentivizes nonstop consumption of oxygen.

The line also carries Koch's signature New York pragmatism: no wellness mystique, no moralizing, just a streetwise command. Yet he can't resist undercutting that toughness with a second gag - "watch your food... don't eat it" - a parody of self-help language that exposes how absurd "simple solutions" sound when they collide with human habit. It's the same logic that governs politics: the fix is obvious, the follow-through is brutal.

Context matters. Koch built his public persona as combative, chatty, and omnipresent - the mayor who asked strangers "How'm I doin'?" This quip is brand maintenance: self-deprecating enough to seem human, sharp enough to signal he knows the game, and cynical enough to hint that restraint is the one virtue public life doesn't reward. The joke flatters the audience for recognizing the type while letting Koch look in on the joke without stepping out of power.