I am a trial lawyer. Matilda says that at dinner on a good day I sound like an affidavit.

The mugger who is arrested is back on the street before the police officer, but the person mugged may not be back on the street for a long time, if ever.

The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us.

You want calamities? What about the Ice Age?

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

I said I didn't want to run for president. I didn't ask you to believe me.

I have no plans, and no plans to plan.

If you can manipulate news, a judge can manipulate the law. A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail, a smart accountant can keep a thief from paying taxes, a smart reporter could ruin your reputation- unfairly.

I am a trial lawyer. Matilda says that at dinner on a good day I sound like an affidavit.

There are few things more amusing in the world of politics than watching moderate Republicans charging to the right in pursuit of greater glory.

I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in fifty years what my father taught me by example in one week.

Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right.

We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things. And we'll do it not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that bring people to their senses.

9/11 occurs, and you're going to rebuild, and after awhile, the memory will be there, but there will be something new there, and different, and functioning, and electric.

A lot of my stories about the old days, they're delicious and funny. But every time I recall the early days, it's painful. With every anecdote, it's painful because you're summoning up the terribly, terribly difficult life of my parents. And it's painful because I didn't realize at the time how hard it was for them.

America was born in outrageous ambition, so bold as to be improbable. The deprived, the oppressed, the powerless from all over the globe came here with little more than the desire to realize themselves.

Bill Clinton has done more to help the middle class than any leader in decades.

California is an unusual and electric kind of state - it's wonderful. All sorts of things happen there.

David Robinson chose to stay at Navy. He talked about commitment, loyalty and values. I wonder how many of us would choose these virtues rather than the chance of becoming a millionaire, especially if you were a college sophomore when you had to make that choice.

Decide exactly what you want to achieve. Do you want to help people, or do you want to be powerful?

Every minute brings a new opportunity. Every minute brings new growth, new experiences.

Hate sells.

I am one who believes that the world goes from the slime to the sublime. And you can take Darwin and all your philosophers and all your ontologists, and that's the direction.

I concentrated on a lot of things, so very few people saw me as an education governor, an infrastructure governor.

I did once answer the question 'What would you say on your tombstone?' I know what I would say: 'Mario Cuomo, 1932 - dash,' and, 'He tried.' That's it.

I don't ever recall having a political argument with Bob Grant. I've known him a long time. I've always liked him.

I guess a psychiatrist would say there's some good to the venting process, but it does also promote an attitude of saying, 'Hey there's nothing wrong with being filled with hate; there's so much of it around.' I don't like that.

I had a chance to go on the Supreme Court of the United States, and my whole family was more disappointed in my deciding not to do that than in my deciding not to run for president - much more.

I had not even thought of running for president until one day in 1991, at a small fund-raiser, completely unanticipated, someone stood up and said, 'Hey, Mario, in all the years we've supported you, we've never heard you talk about the presidency, and we want to know why not.'

I have no quarrel with people seeing me as a sinner.

I was badly mauled by people in New York State for being against the death penalty for 12 years.

I wish I were as good a man as my son is.

If I made a mistake in terms of running for president, the mistake was not in refusing to run in '91.

In '86 or '87, the welfare lists were at the lowest level in 17 years. Why? Because the economy was the best it was in 17 years. There were jobs.

In 1962, President Kennedy succeeded in captivating Americans by explaining the advantages of being the first country to reach the moon and the dangers of allowing another nation to beat us there.

In 1980, in 1984, millions of middle-class Democrats became Reagan Democrats, and more of them drifted toward the Republicans with Bush in 1988.

In 1984, I gave a speech at Notre Dame titled 'Religious Belief and Public Morality.' I said that Catholic legislators will live by the laws of the church because we want to stay in the club.

In this life, you should read everything you can read. Taste everything you can taste. Meet everyone you can meet. Travel everywhere you can travel. Learn everything you can learn. Experience everything you can experience.

My favorite thought about Abraham Lincoln is he believed in two things: loving one another and working together to make this world better.

My parents were immigrants.

No one in the modern history of this country, no president, has done more to move toward a balanced budget than has President Bill Clinton.

Nobody has ever gotten a bigger push than Bill Clinton gave to Obama.

Organized belief in spirituality - that's what a religion is.

Religion is extremely important in this democracy - so important that it occupies a prime position in the Bill of Rights.

Tax should be the same for everybody.

The Catholic Church did not always teach that life begins at conception.

The Catholic teaching against murder, for example, is largely the same as our secular laws. But as a law, it obviously has a secular rationale at least as strong as its religious rationale.

The Mafia is a question every time an Italian raises his head.

The problem is that you can't impose the church's teachings on all Americans as a matter of law.