To this day George Sr. is the soft touch and I’m the enforcer. I’m the one who writes them a letter and says ‘Shape up!’ He writes, ‘You’re marvelous.’
Describing life out of the public eye to David Letterman, December 6th, 1996 It’s been different. I started driving again. I started cooking again. My driving’s better than my cooking. George has discovered Sam’s Club.
Three publishers came to me at the White House after George lost and said, ‘We would like to publish your book.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t have a book,’ and they said well it’s a well known fact that you have kept diaries.
I’m a great believer that the most important years are the sort of early years but the preschool years and then into the first and second grades. If you get a good base in the first and second grade and you can read, you can do anything.
But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?
If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities.
Well, look at what people are doing for returned veterans now. The wounded warriors. They’re working hard to make the wounded veterans feel that they are loved and welcomed home, unlike Vietnam. It was not a very kind, gentle world then. I think we are kinder and gentler.
The personal things should be left out of platforms at conventions. You can argue yourself blue in the face, and you’re not going to change each other’s minds. It’s a waste of your time and my time.
I’m a liberal when it comes to human rights, the poor; so’s George Bush. . . . But Liberal and Conservative don’t mean much to me anymore. Does that mean we care about people and are interested and want to help? And if that makes you a Liberal, so be it.
I’m not saying to be happy you must be married. Nor am I saying that to be happy you need children. I’m saying that if you opt for children – be you man or woman – you have to take care of them.
. . . learning never ends, and as we enter the next century, it will be more and more important for all Americans to be lifelong learners. . . . every one of us can contribute in some way to a better-educated America.
