“The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln.”

“Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.”

“You can have Jesus in your spirit and an outrgeous mess in your soul, and if you don't know what that's called it's called religion. That's what it's called dead dry religion......Jesus said you are a bunch of white washed tombs full of dead men's bones, and I tell you if that didn't describe me I don't know what did, because on Sunday mornings I dressed it up and took it to church.”

“The man with the greatest soul will always face the greatest war with the low minded person.”

“Third-class passengers are treated like sheep and their comforts are sheep’s comforts.”

“Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one is willing to change themselves.”

“Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”

“Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport, with politicians our paunch-bellied gladiators and those who bother to pay attention just fans on the sidelines: We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters. But I don't think so. They are out there, I think to myself, those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way-in their own lives, at least- to make peace with their neighbors, and themselves. ...I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting. They are out there, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”

“Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it. ”

“Seeing all the chattering faces, Paul was suddenly repelled by them. They were cheap masks locked on festering thoughts—voices gabbling to drown out the loud silence in every breast.”

“Fear can paralyze us and keep us from believing God and stepping out in faith. The devil loves a fearful Christian!”

“Don’t try to prove to everybody that the reason why you can’t is that nobody could. It’s no excuse. You can break the tradition by being the first person to make it happen!”

“Remember that it is not the lawyer who knows the most law, but the one who best prepares his case, who wins.”

“Can you take him, Gurney?” “M’Lord jests!”

“Parents do overindulge their children, giving them a profusion of material things . . . without the stabilizing effects of earning one’s way, of making decisions, of sweating hard to attain some kind of goal, young people are grievously handicapped.”