Candidates Running Quotes & Sayings

Both types of books - fiction and nonfiction - are a search for story. As a writer and a reader, there's nothing I crave more than a good story! — Susan Campbell Bartoletti

October is the cruelest month of any election year, but by then, the pain is so great that even the strong are like jelly and time has lost all meaning for anybody still involved in a political campaign. By that time, even candidates running unopposed have abandoned all hope of victory and live only for the day when they will finally be free to seek vengeance on all those treacherous bastards who once passed themselves off as loyal friends and allies and swore they were only in it because they all shared the same hopes and dreams ... — Hunter S. Thompson

I'm thinking there should be a dating site called "Tap That" - Jonathan "Jack" McVoy — E.J. Eisman

If we had known we were going to win control of the Senate, we'd have run better candidates. — Bob Dole

When I am the candidate, I run the campaign. — Richard M. Nixon

[If the Democratic nominee turns out to be] Walter Mondale, I hope he picks Representative Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. It would be a desperate move, but that's what it'll take to get rid of Reagan. Ms. Ferraro is no more unqualified than a lot of Vice Presidential candidates have been, and anyhow Mondale's in good health. — Hendrik Hertzberg

Romney had tried to explain his reasoning to this chorus of confidants, but they were still urging him not to shut the door. They contended that even if he didn't want to launch a formal campaign right now, it would be a mistake to take himself entirely out of the running. They laid out a vivid, detailed scenario in which a fractured Republican Party - divided by a wide field of niche presidential candidates - fails to unite behind a single nominee in 2016, and ends up with a chaotic, historic floor fight at the national convention. Facing a televised descent into disarray, the GOP delegates would naturally turn to Romney - the fully vetted, steady-handed Republican statesman - for salvation. Your party might still need you, Mitt's loyalists insisted. The country might still need you! — McKay Coppins

I don't know if the presidential candidates are running for the White House or Animal House. — Bob Hope

Nothing works on the campaign trail like attacks on candidates for bad attendance. It alienates people on both sides of every issue and reflects a callous disregard of the work of the people. The feeble argument that "I'm running for president" isn't much of a rebuttal: George W. Bush finds time to be president, and he's running too. — Dick Morris

If you vote for candidates who think it's the role of the state to provide health care, don't complain when your hospitals are as badly run as everything else run by the state. — Daniel Hannan

We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not some books continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, and cities have been decayed and demolished? — Francis Bacon

People, please remember that I choose my words very carefully. Assumptions are your enemy. — Chris Kluwe

In the US, voters cast ballots for individual candidates who are not bound to any party program except rhetorically, and not always then. Some Republicans are more liberal than some Democrats, some libertarians are more radical than some socialists, and many local candidates run without any party identification. No American citizen can vote intelligently without knowledge of the ideas, political background, and commitments of each individual candidate. — Ben Bagdikian

It is true that all of the current presidential candidates once denied that they had any intention of running. But the fact that I am also a liar, doesn't make me a candidate. — Pat Paulsen

Democrats should run Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for president. He's more coherent than Dennis Kucinich, he dresses like their base, he's more macho than John Edwards, and he's willing to show up at a forum where he might get one hostile question - unlike the current Democratic candidates for president who won't debate on Fox News Channel. He's not married to an impeached president, and the name Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is surely no more frightening than B. Hussein Obama. — Ann Coulter

I'm not going to speculate.I'm just going to run my campaign, talk about what I'm doing and why I think I'd be the best president of any of the candidates on either side. — Hillary Clinton

I don't want to be disrespectful to people who are incredible at their craft, but the truth is, if I didn't get paid for it, I wouldn't act. The best-paying jobs are usually the worst films. You're a very small cog in a big machine. — Paddy Considine

We guard our bodies until they are old and tasteless, when we could have fed ourselves to claw and fur, been literally reincarnated in the cells of a lion sleeping in the sun, the wall of muscle that is a bear crashing through a rotten log in search of ant eggs. Why not return again and again, glistening, gilded every time? — Craig Childs

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said Allah God has come to fight the battle of justice for the Black man and woman of America and it is He who is plaguing America with the disasters of unusual rain, hail, snow, and soon earthquakes. So if the Black man and woman and the Native Americans, or Indians, are not in the equation of those running for the high office of the Presidency of the United States, if we are not in the equation for justice, then none of these candidates can save America from the Wrath of Allah. — Louis Farrakhan

Is Romney a tea party candidate? I'd probably say that he's the least of the candidates running for president right now that would be considered a tea party candidate. — Tim Scott

I've just come back from Vegas, and I was in on the caucus process. It's insane. What a mess. And also with these particular candidates who are running, so many times I said, "I just wish Kurt [Vonnegut] were alive." This is like something he would be writing. This is just crazy stuff. I would love to hear his take on it. — Susan Sarandon

It doesn't actually make any difference whether the President is Republican or Democrat. The genius of the American ruling class is that it has been able to make the people think that they have had something to do with the electing of presidents for 200 years when they've had absolutely nothing to say about the candidates or the policies or the way the country is run. — Gore Vidal

I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo ... to give a voice to the people the major candidates were ignoring. What I hope most is that now there will be others who will feel themselves as capable of running for high political office as any wealthy, good-looking white male. — Shirley Chisholm

Every politician just has to remember how he got his position in the first place. A young candidate running for Congress or any outsider interested in public office could only achieve his goals by relying on soft power. They could not force anyone to vote for them. They needed to convince their potential voters, they needed to do fundraising, they needed to be attractive candidates. — Joseph Nye

Republicans are taking the possibility of [Donald] Trump as nominee seriously enough that the committee that oversees next year's Senate races laid out a confidential seven-page blueprint for candidates on how to run with Trump at the top of the ticket. — Dalia Mogahed

Donald Trump's not backing down. Yesterday he said he doesn't need to be lectured by the other Republican candidates, who he says have no business running for president. Not to be confused with Donald Trump, who ran for president and now has no business. — Jimmy Fallon

If you see a candidate that Washington embraces, run and hide. — Ted Cruz

I never endorsed Donald Trump or any of the candidates who are running for the nomination that would make them the leader of their party. I said of Mr. Trump that I give him credit as the only one who stood in front of "some" members of the Jewish community and told them he did not need or want their money. This was very big because any man who is able to stand on his own is free enough to do what is in the best interest of the country. That is what I said and that is what I meant. — Louis Farrakhan

So many things constrain us, from so many directions. — Peter Watts

In creating superdelegates, the Democratic Party recognized the expertise that its top holders of public office have gained by running for office themselves. They are experts at winning. They know the issues. They are in a unique position to evaluate presidential candidates. — Jim Hunt

Republicans can't run their normal playbook on me that they try to run on Democratic candidates. They can't say I flip-flop because I don't. They can't say I'm weak on defense because I'm not. They can't say I'm weak on values because I'm not. They can't say I'm a big taxer and a big spender. — Joe Lieberman

America is the largest corporation on the planet. You wouldn't hire a novice to run a similarly sized company in the private markets. My father has created more jobs through his private businesses than certainly any of the candidates. Mitt Romney has executive experience, but it's a different type. He didn't run entrepreneurial businesses. — Ivanka Trump

Gay marriage is a tricky issue for the Democrats due
to the fact that - like taxes, defense and education - they are forced to lie about their position when running for office. In other words, Democrats are gay marriage supporters trapped in the bodies of candidates who oppose gay marriage. And no issue-reassignment surgery can help them. — Ann Coulter

My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: People fear miracles because they fear being changed
though ignoring them will change you also. Swede said another thing, too, and it rang in me like a bell: No miracle happens without a witness. Someone to declare, Here's what I saw. Here's how it went. Make of it what you will. — Leif Enger

One of the candidates running for governor is a 100-year-old woman. Yeah, the 100-year-old says she'd like to recall Governor Gray Davis, but more importantly, she'd like to recall where she left her teeth. — Conan O'Brien

It's good to play something that's black and white, and a guy that sees right and wrong. I've never played a character like that. — David Lyons

Good luck to progressive candidates in U.S. Senate elections against the usual rich, white, racist, women-hating pricks they run against. — Irvine Welsh

It's easier to get people talking about things they dislike than things they like, Elsa has noticed. And it's easier not to get frightened of shadows in the dark — Fredrik Backman