William F. Buckley Jr., one of the fathers of modern American political conservatism, died Wednesday. Whether you agree with his politics or not, it's hard to ignore this positively startling fact from his New York Times obituary: in addition to writing and editing more than 55 books,

The more than 4.5 million words of his 5,600 newspaper columns, titled “On the Right,” would fill 45 more medium-size books. His collected papers, which were donated to Yale, weigh seven tons.

That's a lot of typewriter ribbon, people. And he was found dead in his study, apparently working on another column. Of course, that's the accumulated work of a 60-year career, but if I could summon the work ethic to generate a fraction of that output, I'd be satisfied.