I don't throw people under the bus. When I stick by a guy - I may not agree with him all the time, but I sure don't throw him under the bus.

This is the sheriff you’re talking about, with a gun and badge that enforces the law. Nothing is going to stop me from cracking down on illegal immigration as long as the laws are there.

Maybe today you could have shot anybody and get away with it. So there's many times, I could have killed people. Legally, I could have killed many people, especially working undercover.

I'm an equal-opportunity law-enforcement guy - I lock everybody up.

If you come across illegal aliens committing crimes, other crimes, you deport them.

I am the constitutionally and legitimately elected sheriff, and I absolutely refuse to surrender my responsibility to the federal government.

Everything I did in the jails - chain gangs, everything - I haven't changed the policy. I did it, I stand by it, and I'm not going to change.

We learn by our problems. We correct our deficiencies if there are any.

I don't use e-mail or u-mail or whatever it's called.

Some people call me a publicity hound.

I get a lot of calls from families and people who have served time and they say, 'Thank you, Sheriff. I hate the tents.' That's music to my ears.

Change, I've come to understand, rises up like nausea: the promise of relief is what makes it bearable.

Don't quarrel with yourself

I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

I wouldn't be surprised if one day Carl's halo slipped and choked him.

Men are not sent to hell because of being murderers or liars, they are sent to hell because they are unrighteous.

A magistrate is not a father; he must be just and severe. Only tyrants are fathers.

Old age is life's parody.

The family that I live for only breathes the air that smells of combat.

For want of a Pilate of their own, some Christians would accept a Constantine or whomever might be the current incarnation of Caesar.