“Well, once you’ve been in the Canyon and once you’ve sort of fallen in love with it, it never ends…it’s always been a fascinating place to me, in fact I’ve often said that if I ever had a mistress it would be the Grand Canyon.”

We now have a president who tries to save money by turning off lights in the White House, even as he heads toward a staggering addition to the national debt. “L.B.J.” should stand for Light Bulb Johnson.

Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.

History has to judge every man who served. I don’t know how they’re going to treat me. I may be the worst S.O.B. that ever came down the pike. But I won’t lose any sleep over it. I just like to be remembered as an honest person who tried.

The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.

If you don’t mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream.

My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them.

The big thing is to make this country – quit discriminating against people just because they’re gay. You don’t have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. They’re American citizens.

Perserverance. . .that’s been the story of my family.

Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man’s liberty.

I’m the most underdog underdog there is.

After one of his [Hubert Humphrey] long-winded harangues I suggested he had probably been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. He responded by saying that I would have been a great success in the movies working for Eighteenth Century-Fox.

I certainly believe in aliens in space, and that they are indeed visiting our planet. They may not look like us, but I have very strong feelings that they have advanced beyond our mental capabilities.

I will offer a choice, not an echo.

Government should stay the hell out of people’s business.

In your heart you know he’s right.

If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.

It is a fact of history that those who seek to withdraw from its great experiments usually end up being overwhelmed by them.

The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.

In fact, not only do I support eliminating soft money, but I support full public financing for campaigns.

The ‘working poor,’ as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.

Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.

Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.

Reputations are shaped not by facts but by prejudices.

Facts mean nothing to wounded feelings.