I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword.

I was born in revolution.

I'm not afraid of the press or the Militia.

I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.

I'm not a humanitarian. I'm a hell-raiser.

I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword.

I abide where there is a fight against wrong.

Out of labor's struggle in Arizona came better conditions for the workers, who must everywhere, at all times, under advantage and disadvantage work out their own salvation.

Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts.

Sometimes it seemed to me I could not look at those silent little figures; that I must go north, to the grim coal fields, to the Rocky Mountain camps, where the labor fight is at least fought by grown men.

I have always advised men to read.

Today the white child is sold for two dollars a week to the manufacturers.

I believe that movements to suppress wrongs can be carried out under the protection of our flag.

And who is responsible for this appalling child slavery? Everyone.

Reformation, like education, is a journey, not a destination.

Not all the coal that is dug warms the world.

What one state could not get alone, what one miner against a powerful corporation could not achieve, can be achieved by the union.

My address is like my shoes. It travels with me.

You know I took an oath to tell the truth when I took the witness stand.

I want to hold a series of meetings all over the country and get the facts before the American people.

Men's hearts are cold. They are indifferent.

In Georgia where children work day and night in the cotton mills they have just passed a bill to protect song birds. What about the little children from whom all song is gone?

Life comes to the miners out of their deaths, and death out of their lives.

I am Mother Jones. The Government can't take my life and you can't take my arm, but you can take my suitcase.

I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people.

I will tell the truth wherever I please.

God almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.

I nursed men back to sanity who were driven to despair. I solicited clothes for the ragged children, for the desperate mothers. I laid out the dead, the martyrs of the strike.

I would fight God Almighty Himself if He didn't play square with me.

What is a good enough principle for an American citizen ought to be good enough for the working man to follow.

I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false.

You must stand for free speech in the streets.

The strike of the miners in Arizona was one of the most remarkable strikes in the history of the American labor movement. Its peaceful character, its successful outcome, were due to that most remarkable character, Governor Hunt.

I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.

Little girls and boys, barefooted, walked up and down between the endless rows of spindles, reaching thin little hands into the machinery to repair snapped threads.

I am not an anti to anything which will bring freedom to my class.

I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States senator.

We must stand together; if we don't, there will be no victory for any one of us.

After I'd produced about two dozen pen and ink drawings, one evening I decided that they needed poems to accompany them. I still have no idea where that notion came from, but it took me about two hours to produce verses for these creatures.

Then I decided I couldn't just crawl in the corner and die, so I started putting pen to paper and wrote some songs. I had no idea what for or who I was going to work with. I tried to find my way and direction.

When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.

If you want a transcript of tonight's program, get a pen and write down everything I said.

I'm not letting him write anything. I didn't do anything. I just took his pen.

I've been in a serious conversation with one of my children, and a fan has come up. I've been in a public bathroom and had the hand come under the stall with a paper and pen. That sort of thing anybody can live without.

I like photographing the people I love, the people I admire, the famous, and especially the infamous. My last infamous subject was the extreme right wing French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen.

What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down.

When I came to New York and I opened the window of the thirty-fifth-floor apartment, there's light pollution and fog, and I couldn't see my star. So I drew it on my wrist with a pen, but it kept washing away. Then I went to a tattoo parlor on Second Avenue and had it done.

I've criticized President Bush for his failure to use his veto pen. There's plenty of blame to go around. The question is how to solve problems. It's not bailouts. What made America great? Free markets, free enterprise, manufacturing, job creation. That's how we're gonna do it, not by enlarging government.

You want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.