The American people need to know that money is being used effectively because frankly, the nation can't afford careless spending, no matter how well-intentioned.

We are looking for ways to decrease the dropout rate. I am pretty sure, if we eliminate career and technical education, we are going to increase the dropout rate.

If we abandon marriage, we abandon the family.

I used to be a retailer, and I find it discouraging when somebody comes in and they pick something up and they say, 'Now if you'll sell it to me without the sales tax, I'll buy it.

If you're not at the table, you're on the menu

Every government program needs to be more efficient. Instead of pointing out how other programs can tighten their belts, every program administrator must look inward to save money.

We are truly one nation, under God, indivisible and that we must remain so in the face of any threat to ensure our country remains strong, united and free.

I think we have got to get the Republicans and the Democrats to get back to what I call the fiscal conservative, the issues that drive the tea parties.

The base of our party is commonsense conservatives.If the Republican Party gets back to that base, I think our party's going to be stronger and there's not going to be a need for a third party.

One of my favorite things - and I am sure everybody else's in this Chamber - is to give away money. You really don't get much opposition when you give away money.

Businesses large and small shouldn't have to check the expiration date of a tax provision to see if it's still good.

Guilt, did I say? In what consists ours, unless in the opinion of an ill-judging world?

You can always get someone to love you - even if you have to do it yourself.

New York is the great stone desert.

Make them laugh, make them cry, and hack to laughter. What do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that.

Poetry is a domestic art, most itself when most at home.

Don't tell people you are broke. Guilting fans into buying your music never works.

Evolution isn't just a take-it-or-leave-it story about where we came from. It's an epic at the centre of life itself. It tells us we are part of nature in every respect.

I am talking about poetry. It's like that line from [John] Yeats: I go back to "where all the ladders start/ In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."

What am I doing in this silly showbiz life? I do wonder that sometimes.

We all had to search for more words to describe things.