Committee Member Quotes & Sayings

o In the decision to use the bomb the base line had shifted down during the moral slide from the blockade to the area bombing of Germany and to the fire-bombing of Japan. Predictably one member of Stimson's committee made the point that the 'number of people that would be killed by the bomb would not be greater in general magnitude than the number already killed in fire raids'. — Jonathan Glover

Along with my passion for horse breeding, I was a horse racing enthusiast ... In 1974 I was elected as a committee member and subsequently as a steward of the Turf Club. I had a burning desire to clean up the sport, which had always carried the stigma of gambling and manipulation. — Cyrus S. Poonawalla

When Hillary served in the Senate, I saw her work day and night as a member of the Armed Services Committee - working with Republicans and Democrats to keep our military strong and protect our troops and their families. — Madeleine Albright

At this point the judge took over the questioning. "Didn't lynchings happen in Mississippi?" he asked. Yes, admitted the rating committee member, but it was all so long ago, why dwell on it now? "It is a history book, isn't it?" asked the judge. — James W. Loewen

I've never worked in politics, never been a member of an official committee or a political party. — Naguib Mahfouz

Many of the earmark request forms are actually filled out by lobbyists and then just turned in by the member's staff to the appropriations committee. — Jeff Flake

A member of the committee slapped a name tag over my left bosom. "What shall we name the other one?" I smiled. She was not amused. — Erma Bombeck

Well, the senators I've enjoyed working with the most would be Ted Kennedy and Kent Conrad, because they were both either chairman or ranking member of the committee I was chairman or ranking member of. And in both instances they were just great people to work with. — Judd Gregg

As the first Member of Congress from western Washington to serve on the House Agriculture Committee in over 50 years, I am proud to represent the needs of our agriculture community. — Rick Larsen

As a son of an airman who was stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, it is my honor to nominate young people to our military academies. — Ron Barber

As a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, I will be participating in several hearings on the startling revelations contained in the report. — Charles Bass

To assess the intelligence of a committee, divide the IQ of its stupidest member by the number of members. — Robert A. Heinlein

I think it was beginning to dawn on us that the kids could be damned one way or the other, depending on the school, on the composition of the committee reviewing the application, even on the disposition of an individual member of the committee. A — Andrew Ferguson

And yes, there's a simplicity to writing books because you're not a member of a team, so you make all the decisions yourself instead of deferring to a committee. — Bernard Cornwell

Shortly after Senator Eugene J. McCarthy died in 2005 the age of 89, I became an honorary member of the committee starting a fellowship in McCarthy's name at his alma mater, Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. — Kitty Kelley

I'm a member of the US committee o the United Nations. — Betty Hill

And everything is controlled and everybody is a member of some committee, because then their watchdogs placed in the committees can control everything, what this person says or how this person think(s), you know. — Milos Forman

This person should not be directly connected with the President Ford Committee nor should he be seen as a member of the liberal wing of the Republican Party. He should be someone like Laird or Rogers Morton. — Robert Teeter

I've certainly stayed a marginal figure, though I became a member of the "surveillance committee" fairly early on. I can actually live pretty well with this, because I'm allowed to work in peace - except when I have to give strings of interviews ... And also, I've never sought a position of power in the music business. I became a teacher not so as to found a Kagel School, but to transmit knowledge. My work as a composer should be the only yardstick by which my contribution can be measured. — Mauricio Kagel

North Carolina precinct chairman and GOP executive committee member Don Yelton thinks his state's new voting restrictions are just fine. — Aasif Mandvi

As a member of the Aging Committee, I'm no stranger to fighting for America's seniors. — Claire McCaskill

He had the tendency, unfortunate for a new member of the committee, to like if not the rich themselves, at least their activities and surroundings, and to dislike the poor; a woman in rags toting a baby, barefoot children, made him feel sadistic rather than compassionate.

His socialism, then, had the impatience and unfriendliness of a fashionable doctor forced to attend a tramp run over in the street. — Hans Koningsberger

During the last considerable epidemic at the turn of the century, I was a member of the Health Committee of London Borough Council, and I learned how the credit of vaccination is kept up statistically by diagnosing all the revaccinated cases (of smallpox) as pustular eczema, varioloid or what not
except smallpox. — George Bernard Shaw

As southeast Texas's only Member of the House Transportation Committee, I'm especially proud of being able to help bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the region to create jobs and improve the area infrastructure. — Nick Lampson

The pinnacle of power in China is the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, the tiny body that sets policy for the nation's 1.4 billion citizens. — Tom Clancy

Dad was a chemistry professor at Saint Olaf College in Minnesota, then Oxford College in Minnesota, and a very active member of the American Chemical Society education committee, where he sat on the committee with Linus Pauling, who had authored a very phenomenally important textbook of chemistry. — Peter Agre

There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offenses, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Quite frankly, I'm a member of the investigative committee, one of the senior members of the panel. I don't take our investigative facts and information from a magazine or some article. — John Mica

As a member of the House Committee on Small Business and because of my own experience as a small business owner, I am appreciative of the impact these small businesses have on our local economies. — Melissa Bean

I was a member of the Armed Services Committee for 18 years. I spent a big chunk of my life studying national security issues and our role in the world. — John Kasich

I was elected by the Democrats to be chair of the Veterans Committee, which I'm very proud of. And now am the rankings member on the Budget Committee, leader of the Democrats in opposition to the majority Republicans. — Bernie Sanders

One side thinks the president'€s request for war-making powers is too brazen and even reckless. The other side thinks it is too spineless and probably ineffectual. 'It does not seem to have resonated with anyone,' said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a member of the Intelligence Committee. 'I haven't found any colleague who'€s been enthusiastic about it.' — Peter Baker

Idea the situation was so bad until I asked each committee member to present a status report at our meeting this morning. — Rachel Renee Russell

On Wednesday, April 9, 1969, Bush, who was just beginning his second term as a congressman, flew to see the former president at LBJ's ranch at Stonewall, Texas, about 220 miles from Houston. "Mr. President, I've still got a decision to make and I'd like your advice," Bush said. "My House seat is secure - no opposition last time - and I've got a position on Ways and Means. I don't mind taking risks, but in a few more terms, I'll have seniority on a powerful committee. I'm just not sure it's a gamble I should take, whether it's really worth it." "Son," Johnson said, "I've served in the House. And I've been privileged to serve in the Senate, too. And they're both good places to serve. So I wouldn't begin to advise you what to do, except to say this - that the difference between being a member of the Senate and a member of the House is the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit." The former president paused. "Do I make my point? — Jon Meacham

Perry does not love the cost of this adventure, but his investor brain is going to run the numbers. The brain always insists on being the last committee member to cave. The brain likes to make speeches that usually begin with a familiar opening:Ladies and gentlemen, I have been wronged. — Edmond Manning

The crash of 2008 ought to have thrown a bucket of cold water over the excited futurologists. Open societies suffered far more than closed regimes. A member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was entitled to wonder why Americans were telling him he must allow free speech when China was booming and the First Amendment had not stopped debt-laden America going through a deep recession. — Nick Cohen

As Vermont's senator and a member of the Budget Committee, I will not support a plan to reduce the deficit that does not call for shared sacrifice. — Bernie Sanders

Madam Speaker, I have spent more than half my life as a member of the Resources Committee. In that time I have supported numerous wilderness designations. In fact, I cannot recall ever opposing a wilderness bill. — Nick Rahall

At the time when Pope Pius VII had to leave Rome, which had been conquered by revolutionary French, the committee of the Chamber of Commerce in London was considering the herring fishery. One member of the committee observed that, since the Pope had been forced to leave Rome, Italy was probably going to become a Protestant country. "Heaven help us," cried another member. "What," responded the first, "would you be upset to see the number of good Protestants increase?" "No," the other answered, "it isn't that, but suppose there are no more Catholics, what shall we do with our herring?" - Alexandre Dumas, Le grand dictionnaire de cuisine, 1873 — Mark Kurlansky

Most writers cannot afford focus groups or A/B testing, but they can ask a roommate or colleague or family member to read what they wrote and comment on it. Your reviewers needn't even be a representative sample of your intended audience. Often it's enough that they are not you. This does not mean you should implement every last suggestion they offer. Each commentator has a curse of knowledge of his own, together with hobbyhorses, blind spots, and axes to grind, and the writer cannot pander to all of them. Many academic articles contain bewildering non sequiturs and digressions that the authors stuck in at the insistence of an anonymous reviewer who had the power to reject it from the journal if they didn't comply. Good prose is never written by a committee. A writer should revise in response to a comment when it comes from more than one reader or when it makes sense to the writer herself. — Steven Pinker