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

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.

By Rice's own standards, the war was well underway by the time he took office. He was a war president the moment he took the oath. But did he act like one?

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.

It was also during my tenure of office that the Japanese Government agreed to the conclusion of a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and signed it, pursuing a policy in harmony with the avowed desire of the people.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

Don't try to be somebody you're not because it doesn't work. If you try to be this perfect person or perfect persona of what you think that somebody should be when they're involved in public office, it's just not going to work. Just be yourself, stay true to your core values, and really just stay abreast of the issues.

From my very first day in the Mayor's office, I have worked closely with the Council members who share our vision of a city hall that really protects taxpayers and cares... yes... about the little things that make a big difference in people's lives.

That the apostolic office is temporary, is a plain historical fact.

No man should have a political office because he wants a job.

The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.

The right way to reign in healthcare costs is not by applying more government and more controls and making it more like the post office, it's by making it more like a consumer-driven market.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

You get elected, often, if you're a woman, on the strength of the women's vote; then you get into office, and you have to adapt to an overwhelmingly male environment.

I couldn't sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker.

Laboring men can perform for themselves the office of becoming their own employers.

If you win the Oscar, you get to go into just about anybody's office for a month.

Things on the whole are much faster in America; people don't 'stand for election', they 'run for office.'

For the past several years, the Meth Caucus has worked to engage the Office of National Drug Control Policy on this issue. We have tried to get their attention that meth requires a strong, comprehensive Federal policy.

In the discharge of the duties of this office, there is one rule of action more important than all others. It consists in never doing anything that someone else can do for you.

He who uses the office he owes to the voters wrongfully and against them is a thief.

I wonder if that's hurt me at the box office. Maybe audiences these days want to know exactly what to expect when they go into a movie, and my movies are hard to explain in just one way.

I will undoubtedly have to seek what is happily known as gainful employment, which I am glad to say does not describe holding public office.

Well, you know I have an office, my film offices. So I know that syndrome. I fancy offices, so there must be something wrong with me. Even the window cleaner intrigues me. It's a very sexy environment.

My father had not even completed high school when he started as an office boy working for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and I am not sure that my mother completed high school.

In the Astronaut Office we're never totally out of training, we always keep our hand in it. But after five years, things have changed and so it's been good to get back into the flow and relearn a lot of things.

Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world.