A good lesson in keeping your perspective is: Take your job seriously but don't take yourself seriously.

A good lesson in keeping your perspective is: Take your job seriously but don't take yourself seriously.

All politics is local.

It's easier to run for office than to run the office.

You better take advantage of the good cigars. You don't get much else in that job.

Anyone who comes into your office with an idea, and it may be the silliest idea in the world, listen to them and never ridicule them.

I certainly tried to make the House a more open and effective place, and I believe I succeeded.

I have a statement on the Social Security. A lot of people approaching that age have either already retired on pensions or have made irreversible plans to retire very soon... I consider it a breach of faith to renege on that promise. It is a rotten thing to do.

I intend to be a strong Speaker. I hope to make some imaginative changes around here.

I know the kind of street I'm going down. I know my own strengths and weaknesses.

I regard myself as a grand juror waiting to hear the evidence from the prosecutor, the Judiciary Committee. I'm diametrically opposed to Nixon and everything he stands for, but I want to see the evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors first.

I said in a speech out in Peoria that with Jerry in as vice president, the pressures on Nixon to resign would be unbearable. I know that Republicans see 50 House seats flying out the window in 1974.

I think the speaker of the House in Congress should be like the Massachusetts speaker: all-powerful. He should appoint committee chairmen and remove them if they stray from the party line. He should be answerable only to the caucus, which can remove him at any time. I'd throw the seniority system out on its ear in Congress.

In 1977, when I became Speaker, I started meeting with TV reporters each morning when I arrived at work. Later in the morning, I would hold a news conference before the House opened. I always told the truth and almost never answered with 'no comment.'

Let us forget the frustrations of the past and think of our unfulfilled potential.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, if you're straight with the press, they'll be straight with you.

That's politics. After six o'clock, we can be friends, but before six, it's politics.

The Reagan program is not working because the program is not fair - and, just as important, because the people themselves know it is not fair.

To this day, I can't understand why the closest man to Jimmy Carter, the key staff guy at the White House, didn't even join us at the White House breakfast meetings where we discussed upcoming legislation with the president. This was unprecedented. People used to say that Jordan was the most brilliant guy around, but you couldn't prove it by me.

When I became majority leader in Washington, I was interviewed constantly. I was always happy to talk to the press, but I drew the line at the Sunday morning talk shows on television. After a full work week consisting of long days and frequent late evenings, I insisted on keeping my weekends free for my family and friends.

With Ronald Reagan in the White House, somebody had to look out for those who were not so fortunate. That's where I came in.

You can teach an old dog new tricks, and this old dog wants to learn.

You can't assume anything in politics. That's why every Saturday I walk around my district. I talk to the longshoremen in Charlestown. I listen to the people in East Boston and their concern on the airport noise. I walk down to the Star Market in Porter Square, and people tell me about meat prices.

You better take advantage of the good cigars. You dont get much else in that job.

I have done things politically, and I've been running a business at the same time, but I sort of joke that to some extent I do more than most legislators have done in their whole careers, and I've been doing it as a part-time job.

I believe that if a man does a job as well as a woman, he should be paid as much.

Don't let ambition get so far ahead that it loses sight of the job at hand.

You really should not do this job unless you're willing to put in that enormous amount of effort. You should not do the job unless you're willing to take risks. And you shouldn't do the job unless you're willing to lose the job, too.

In 1975 I decided that there was no future in flying (airline jobs were impossible to get, and who wants a job where you are judged only by seniority?) and headed off to grad school.

If we wait for the U.S. to do something, we will be waiting for a very long time. It's Europe, it's Australia, it's the other developed and middle developing countries that have got to do the job.

Even if I don't have a job, I work on plays and scenes.

In the middle of a recession no tax increase is justified because it kills jobs, and any tax increase is a job-killing measure and should be defeated.

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

Well, I think that those of us in public life that are trying to do a good job, and that are faced with this popular new game that the media has of being critical of everything that anybody in public office does probably are thin-skinned.

People may take a job for more money, but they often leave it for more recognition.

I always saw being in a band a full time job.

Promoting job creation and economic growth in the Hudson Valley is one of my top priorities in Congress.

A politician will do anything to keep his job - even become a patriot.

Harvard is first and foremost a university and not a consulting operation, and our job here is to teach and to research and to create knowledge on Asia in conjunction and in cooperation with scholars as well as with political, intellectual, and cultural leaders in Asia.

While a lab Director can get done the things that he regards as important, he has the more important job of bringing out the best ideas of the broader scientific community.

The growth of technology is such that it is not possible today for a nuclear physicist to switch into medical physics without training. The field is now much more technical. More training is needed to do the job.

I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job.

We have stabilized our economy. We took over a very sick economy, and we were hemorrhaging 750,000 jobs a month. We have stopped the hemorrhaging. In fact, we had 140,000 job growth last month. And that's what I call progress.

Our job as writers and thinkers in the time is how to bring about the occasions that let people have that first-person experience - or the metaphoric experience that allows them to see human continuity as opposed to total threat, total willingness to do violence.

As an actress, I have to be objective about myself. If I don't criticize myself, there are plenty who will do a find job of it for me!

I think that if there are positions that you can't argue... then the responsibility is probably to resign. If one's own conscience is opposed to the requirements and responsibilities of the job, then it's time to leave the job.

If they respect the craft and what we're doing and they bring something to the table and they work hard, I don't care what you do as your side job or as your day job.

We need to work together, on a bipartisan basis, to create new jobs, increase job training, enact real and substantive middle class tax relief, and reward companies that create jobs at home.

A person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he has either done a poor job or is devoid of emotion.