American Quotes

I've gone from being one of the youngest governors to now the longest consecutive serving governor in the country.

I've been in the legislative branch and now the executive branch and in each case I felt it was important we use our constitutional responsibilities to the fullest.

I'm very pleased with the job President Bush is doing and he's off to a terrific start.

I'm a compassionate conservative.

I wish we could have acted quicker on Detroit or other failing schools.

I think we've got outstanding teaching in Michigan classrooms.

I kept telling everyone I wasn't going to Washington to stay. I go to visit.

I just have a position that any child that's in a failing school should be able to get out, or be in a position to have that school fixed.

I have an old saying that the harder I work, the luckier I get.

I expect my next job to be outside government.

I don't put labels on myself.

I created no authority that wasn't already there under the constitution.

I care about the children of Detroit.

Despite these hurdles, manufacturers in the U.S. and their employees are doing remarkable work.

Believe me, I'm not going to try to get into testing.

As you look around the country there are still a significant number of states where their whole school debate is over school funding and we've been focused on the quality debate for most of the '90s.

As governor, I learned the importance of having an agenda.

And there should not be a limit on the creation of new public schools. We ought to expand choices for parents.

All 50 states had the same national economy. And on virtually any measurement you wish to look at, Michigan has moved up and improved against the others.

I had made a decision early on that we were going to do the right things and that if they worked we were going to be very successful. And if for some reason they didn't, all the claims and the protestations and the excuses wouldn't make any difference.

You win by working hard, making tough decisions and building coalitions.

Given the professionalism of Michigan teachers, I think they're not teaching because of the financial rewards.

Sometimes it is better to begin the journey, to get under way, then it is to sit back and wait until such time that you're convinced that all conditions are perfect and that there'll be no surprises along the route.

Wisdom is knowing when you can't be wise.

The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.

But maybe it's up in the hills under the leaves or in a ditch somewhere. Maybe it's never found. But what you find, whatever you find, is always only part of the missing, and writing is the way the poet finds out what it is he found.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.

Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage.

To all of us who have been charged, we all agree that we don't feel like we were doing things that we weren't supposed to, because we were told to do them. We think everything was justified, because we were instructed to do this and to do that.

I've heard attacks were made on coalition forces because of those. I apologize to the families of those who lost loved ones or were injured because of the photos.