Bert Lance

I've always tried to set some kind of goal. I want to be better than anybody in the banking business, and when I ran the Highway Department in Georgia, I wanted it to be the best in the country. And of course, I have a high sense of public service.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

All these years, they've been giving lip service to saying that we are a party that is inclusive instead of exclusive. We've said the Democratic Party has a great big umbrella, and everybody can be comfortable under that umbrella. If they didn't mean it, then it ought to be pulled apart.

Country banks are more flexible in their lending policies than their city brethren are.

Some people just decide they won't vote for you, but it doesn't have to be all negative.

If the house is on fire, and the fireman shows up, you don't question his color or credentials. You don't send him back to the firehouse and say, 'Send somebody else.'

If you have a situation where you need help, it doesn't make any difference where it comes from.

I don't see I'll ever arrive at the point where I'll say, 'Lance old boy, you've arrived at success.' There's no question about it. Once you get to the point where you've arrived at a station called success, you get complacent and lethargic. Those goals you set keep changing. But it's not a ruthless sort of thing.

I happen to truly believe this: Success is a journey and not a destination.

I did not want to be a source of diversion from the Mondale-Ferraro ticket. It appears no matter what I did or tried to do, that would not be the case. I came to the conclusion that it was in the best interest of all to stand aside.

It's never easy to say you're sorry.

In politics, you have to understand that there are some cases where you'll never be able to get votes.

In politics, they don't want anything that deters whatever their goal is. When people get in the way of that, that's when people get hurt - and sometimes destroyed.

I guess it is ironical that I have a chance to say to Jesse Jackson, 'You need to be mature. You need to be positive. You need to be bigger than the folks who are trying to tear you down.'

I've always believed that if you had a fellow who works 150 percent of the time, he's going to beat a fellow who works something less than that.

Jesse Jackson is not anti-Semitic, but in politics, you always get in trouble when you try to be cute.

Folks are serious about three things: Their religion, their family and, most of all, their money.

I don't know how smart I am. I just try to be what I am. I hope I'm modest. I think that's a desirable trait.

I'm a futures man.

I devised the Bert Lance Toe Test then - you go out on the front porch of the house, turn 'The Washington Post' over with your big toe, and if your name's above the fold, you know you're not going to have a good day.

The press aren't willing to wait for whatever the truth is - the truth never catches up with the lie... Destroying people ought not to be a competitive business.