American Quotes

Twenty-eight years in business and you understand the importance of problem solving and the importance of efficiency, because if you don't become efficient, you don't run a business well, and you are out of business. And I think some of those principles could be applied to leadership in Washington.

There's huge opportunities to continue to improve efficiency in the way the government operates and improve the way government provides services to its citizens.

One of our ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and we had family in Jamestown as well... I was raised where service was a part of the fabric of life. It wasn't one-upmanship. No one bragged about their medals, but you could see the look in the eyes, the tip of the hat. You served your country firs

I've met so many people of my son's generation who think a sacrifice is when their satellite or Internet is out for a day and that the country owes them something. That old J.F.K. quote about 'what you can do for your country,' doesn't even seem to apply to so many people.

I'm very proud that our country still produces people like my son, who choose the path less traveled; that knowingly step up to serve, even though our country is tearing itself apart with things like political machinations.

I was a big fan of Ronald Reagan. He was the first president I got to vote for.

I ran for Congress not because I was having a mid-life crisis. I left the private sector because I saw a looming financial crisis that was coming to this country. It's unsustainable.

I had the interesting experience of having lived and worked for six years in China with Procter & Gamble, and that just changes, I think, your whole perspective in living overseas and living in a country like China.

I had the chance to visit all 56 counties in Montana in my pickup. You can put Washington, D.C., in one corner of our state and put Chicago in the other corner, and that's the size of my congressional district.

I grew up climbing mountains in Montana and Wyoming and my wife and I were engaged on top of a mountain peak: Hyalite Peak in Montana. It was a 15-mile hike to get to the top of that, round-trip - thankfully, she said yes.

I love having my hair blown dry by a stylist and I also truly enjoy being with my friends and family.

I love going to the movies and being moved emotionally. I like my work, singing and writing in my journal.

I don't I have everything I want; however, I have a lot and for that I am very grateful.

I am single and happy.

In Hollywood, after you get a little success, the next thing you usually get is a divorce.

Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

We can only write well about our sins because it is too difficult to recall a virtuous act or even whether it was the result of good or evil motives.

To write is a humiliation.

The machine has had a pernicious effect upon virtue, pity, and love, and young men used to machines which induce inertia, and fear, are near impotent.

The bad poet is a toady mimicking nature.

The ancients understood the regulation of power better than the regulation of liberty.

The Americans have always been food, sex, and spirit revivalists.

So much of our lives is given over to the consideration of our imperfections that there is no time to improve our imaginary virtues. The truth is we only perfect our vices, and man is a worse creature when he dies than he was when he was born.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

Men are mad most of their lives; few live sane, fewer die so. The acts of people are baffling unless we realize that their wits are disordered. Man is driven to justice by his lunacy.

Man hoards himself when he has nothing to give away.

Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.

Genius, like truth, has a shabby and neglected mien.

Every decision you make is a mistake.