Feinstein Quotes & Sayings

Toughness doesn't have to come in a pinstripe suit. — Dianne Feinstein

I was drawn to street photography because there are pictures everywhere there: a woman holding a dog, a baby screaming to be put in a pram, kids playing punch ball, stores with huge barrels of kosher pickles outside. I wanted to photograph life, and here it was. — Harold Feinstein

Coney Island is and always will be 'the people's playground.' It's a place where people of all backgrounds come to have a good time. — Harold Feinstein

Cancer may rob me of my physical powers. But it cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul. Those parts of me will live on forever." The — John Feinstein

Our climate is changing. The Earth's climate has, in fact, warmed by 1.1 to 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit since the industrial revolution. People look at this and say: Oh, that is not very much. In fact, it is very much, and it changes the dynamic. It impacts species. It kills some. It diminishes the carbon sink of the ocean. It does a number of things. — Dianne Feinstein

I always feel I had a very lucky life. For example, I sure didn't want to go in the army: when I was drafted in the Korean War, I wanted to go as a photographer. But luckily, they put me in the infantry - luckily because the official photographer was photographing the medal awarding and all the official situations. — Harold Feinstein

Assault weapons pose a grave threat to all Americans, but most especially to law enforcement officers on our city streets. — Dianne Feinstein

In California, for so long now, our families have been struggling in this economic environment, and Dianne Feinstein, been in office nearly half a century, is out of touch of what women and families are going through in California. — Elizabeth Emken

Abortion, however, is a big threshold issue for me because the dominant majority of people in my state are pro-choice, .. I ran as a pro-choice Democrat, and she fills Sandra Day O'Connor's shoes, and they are critical shoes. — Dianne Feinstein

Yeah, Stevie thought, you should probably pick up when the vice president of the United States calls. — John Feinstein

Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want. — Dianne Feinstein

And in an issue with this kind of concern to a committee that bears the oversight responsibility, I think you can see that we're very dismayed about it . — Dianne Feinstein

Ironically, if you look at Dianne Feinstein's profile and you look at my profile, I'm the 99 percent. Dianne Feinstein's the one percent. She appeals to one percent. — Elizabeth Emken

Goldsboro, North Carolina. — John Feinstein

It appears to be a case of revenge run amok. — Dianne Feinstein

It's a myth that the border can't be enforced. It can be enforced. — Dianne Feinstein

Instead of starting a new nuclear arms race, now is the time to reclaim our Nation's position of leadership on nuclear nonproliferation efforts. — Dianne Feinstein

I think Dianne Feinstein may be the most Orwellian political official in Washington. — Glenn Greenwald

Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs, not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less. — Dianne Feinstein

A woman does not have to make decisions based on the need to survive. She can cut through issues, call shots as she sees them ... Many bad decisions are made by men in government because it is good for them personally to make bad public decisions. — Dianne Feinstein

I'm concerned about the role the court will play in protecting individual rights in this and the next century. — Dianne Feinstein

Graduating from college doesn't mean you're smart, said Mike Mussina who graduated from Stanford in 3 1/2 years, but it does mean you're smart enough to know that having a college degree would be a good thing. — John Feinstein

Historically, the court has been the forum to which individuals can turn when they believed their constitutional rights were violated. This has been especially noteworthy in the arena of civil rights. — Dianne Feinstein

When your mouth drops open, click the shutter. — Harold Feinstein

It was true. After our divorce, I'd ended up in a slight relationship with my last research assistant, Aurelia Feinstein, age 34-though let me state for the record it was not as hot as it sounded. Making love to Aurelia was like rummaging through a card catalog in a deserted library, searching for one very obscure little red entry on Hungarian poetry. It was dead silent, no one gave me any dierection, and nothing was where it was supposed to be. — Marisha Pessl

You see," Bouton wrote, "you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time." Truer words were never written. — John Feinstein

We have a chance to wind down and expedite the removal of 96 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. What an achievement it would be, if at the end of the next administration, we could say that the nuclear arsenals of both Russia and the United States had been reduced to the barest minimums. — Dianne Feinstein

The Copse at Hurstbourne is one of those fancy-sounding titles for a brand-new tract of condominiums on the outskirts of town. 'Copse' as in 'a thicket of small trees.' 'Hurst' as in 'hillock, knoll, or mound.' And 'bourne' as in 'brook or stream.' All of these geological and botanical wonders did seem to conjoin within the twenty parcels of the development, but it was hard to understand why it couldn't have just been called Shady Acres, which is what it was. Apparently people aren't willing to pay a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a home that doesn't sound like it's part of an Anglo-Saxon land grant. These often quite utilitarian dwellings are never named after Jews or Mexicans. Try marketing Rancho Feinstein if you want to lose money in a hurry. Or Paco Sanchez Park. Middle-class Americans aspire to tone, which is equated, absurdly, with the British gentry. — Sue Grafton

I believe the Visa Waiver Program, it essentially is the soft underbelly of the visa system. Now we have 35 countries in it. We have 16 million people coming in. I believe the overstays still run about 40 percent of the undocumented population. In other words, there's 40 percent that you really don't know where it came from is what I'm trying to say. And I've always suspected people come in on a visitor's visa and they just decide to stay, and that's a large part of the undocumented population. — Dianne Feinstein

Feinstein examined the efficacy of various obesity treatments in a lengthy review in the Journal of Chronic Diseases, he dismissed exercise in a single paragraph. "There has been ample demonstration that exercise is an ineffective method of increasing energy output," Feinstein noted, "since it takes far too much activity to burn up enough calories for a significant weight loss. In addition, physical exertion may evoke a desire for food so that the subsequent intake of calories may exceed what was lost during the exercise. — Gary Taubes

I'm one that believes that Samuel Alito appointment on the Supreme Court is a pivotal appointment. And because he replace Sandra Day O'Connor and because she was the fifth vote on 148 cases, you well could be a very key and decisive vote. — Dianne Feinstein

While the distance between the United States and Iraq is great, Saddam Hussein's ability to use his chemical and biological weapons against us is not constrained by geography - it can be accomplished in a number of different ways - which is what makes this threat so real and persuasive. — Dianne Feinstein

America is big enough to admit when it's wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes. — Dianne Feinstein

Fifteen minutes in the majors means you're a great baseball player," said Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland - who never got his fifteen minutes above the Triple-A level. "People just can't understand how good you have to be to get there at all. — John Feinstein

For the life of me, I don't understand what honest motive there is in putting this in front of this body to philosophically debate marriage on a constitutional amendment that is not going to happen, and which is enormously divisive in all of our communities. — Dianne Feinstein

[W]e have ceased to see the life in which we live. It is my intent to cause the viewer to revisit the gifts we are surrounded by and see them as if for the first time. — Harold Feinstein

I am not a high-tech techie, but I have been told that is not possible. — Dianne Feinstein

Our supportfor assault weapons ban is very broad ... I think we've got all the police, we have all the mayors virtually - the conference of mayors, mayors against guns. We have medical experts, we have virtually dozens of religious organizations of every creed supporting us. We have just lists and lists. — Dianne Feinstein

Hate can destroy you or it can fuel you. I knew I had to find a way for it to fuel me." Krzyzewski — John Feinstein

On one hand you want to see your subject well. On the other hand, you want to be caught off guard to retain the spontaneity. If you know your subject too well you stop seeing it. — Harold Feinstein

The term in baseball nowadays is a "walk-off home run." It didn't exist until Kirk Gibson hit his famous pinch-hit home run off Dennis Eckersley in game one of the 1988 World Series and Eckersley referred to it as "a walk-off," meaning, quite simply, that when someone does what Gibson did to him in that game, there's nothing left to do except walk off the mound into the dugout and then into the clubhouse. — John Feinstein

There is no more direct or honest person than Jim Clapper. — Dianne Feinstein

You can't explain what it is about the sound of Sinatra's voice," Feinstein says. "I mean, you can try, and you can get very poetic in describing it. But there is something there that is transcendent, that simply exists in his instrument. He developed it, he honed it, he understood it himself, he knew what he could do, and he used it to his best advantage. That was something that people responded to. — James Kaplan

Let the record show that you can be a United States senator for 21 years. You can be 79 years old. You can be the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and one of the most recognizable and widely-respected veteran public servants in your nation. But if you are female while all of those things, men who you defeat in arguments will still respond to you by calling you hysterical and telling you to calm down. They'll patronize you and say they admire your passion, 'sweetie,' but they deal in facts, not your silly, girly feelings. It's inescapable. You can set your watch by it. — Dianne Feinstein

intense than playing to collect a check. — John Feinstein

The American national security state is totally bipartisan. My biggest problem is with the Democrats, like Feinstein and Pelosi, who are defending it because there is a Democrat in the White House, and they are party loyalists and hacks before they are public servants. — Glenn Greenwald

Domestic violence does not only happen to adults. Forty percent of girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend, and approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and sexually abused by a dating partner. — Dianne Feinstein

Early in the game, when it was still close, a couple of calls had gone against Carolina. Some of the students had started a profane chant. It didn't last very long, because Smith walked straight to the scorer's table, took the PA microphone, pointed in the direction of the students, and said, "Stop. Now. We don't do that here. We win with class at Carolina." They stopped. Instantly. When — John Feinstein

[On gay ban in the military:] Heroism, I believe, is a trait that does not know race, color, creed, sex, or sexual orientation. — Dianne Feinstein

If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them ... 'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,' I would have done it. — Dianne Feinstein

Let me say this: I believe closing Guantanamo is in our Nation's national security interest. Guantanamo is used not only by al-Qaida, but also by other nations, governments, and individuals - people good and bad - as a symbol of America's abuse of Muslims, and it is fanning the flames of anti-Americanism around the world. — Dianne Feinstein

Managing games comes second. Managing people comes first. — John Feinstein

They had become unofficial mentors to the two aspiring teenage journalists, — John Feinstein

He's the reason I have so few rules on my team. He told me not to make any rules because that way if a bad kid screws up you get rid of him. If a good kid screws up you do what you have to do and let it go at that. Rules just get you in trouble. — John Feinstein

We have federal regulations and state laws that prohibit hunting ducks with more than three rounds. And yet it's legal to hunt humans with 15-round, 30-round, even 150-round magazines. — Dianne Feinstein

We all know Sen. Feinstein is out of touch, but just to make it worse, by not embracing today's technology, she isn't even connected. Out of touch and disconnected. — Elizabeth Emken

She's in that show on the CW, what's it called, Uncovered? She plays a teenage hooker." "A hooker?" Stevie said. "A teenager?" Susan Carol said. "That woman plays a teenager? You're kidding, right? — John Feinstein

The thing is that pictures are everywhere. The question is what we don't see, and why don't we see so much. I just see it. — Harold Feinstein

I think the greatest threat to the privacy of Americans is the drone, and the use of the drone and the very few regulations that are on it today, and the booming industry of commercial drones. — Dianne Feinstein

Yes, I support the death penalty. It is an issue that cannot be fudged or hedged. — Dianne Feinstein

You must photograph where you are involved; where you are overwhelmed by what you see before you; where you hold your breath while releasing the shutter, not because you are afraid of jarring the camera, but because you are seeing with your guts wide open to the sweet pain of an image that is part of your life. — Harold Feinstein

I began photographing in 1946. Before that, I was a painter and drawer, with my mother and father's support. They were a bit pissed when I went into photography. They thought photographers were guys who took pictures at weddings. — Harold Feinstein

Women are beginning to feel that they are not fairly represented. As we say, 2% may be fine for fat in milk, but not for the United States Senate. — Dianne Feinstein

If you expose what it is that we're doing, if you inform your fellow citizens about all the things that we're doing in the dark, we will destroy you. This is what their spate of prosecutions of whistleblowers have [sic] been about. It's what trying to threaten journalists, to criminalize what they do, is about. It's to create a climate of fear, so that nobody will bring accountability to them.
It's not going to work. I think it's starting to backfire, because it shows their true character and exactly why they can't be trusted to operate with power in secret. And we're certainly not going to be deterred by it in any way. The people who are going to be investigated are not the people reporting on this, but are people like Dianne Feinstein and her friends in the National Security Agency, who need investigation and transparency for all the things that they've been doing. — Glenn Greenwald

The National Guard fulfills the militia mentioned in the Second amendment. Citizens no longer need to protect the states or themselves. — Dianne Feinstein

It is my hope that the number of stem cell lines available for federally-funded research will be expanded so that the government can continue to participate in this vital research and provide hope to the millions of Americans with diseases that might be cured. — Dianne Feinstein

I'm old, but I'm not good enough to be jaded. — John Feinstein

He's a world-famous name to people who care about his music, but there are many people who have never heard of George Gershwin and those numbers increase. — Michael Feinstein

Don't leave music in the lone territory of the music teacher; make it a part of your instruction. In the words of Bob Marley, "Music gonna teach dem a lesson. — Sheryl G. Feinstein

(He) committed the cardinal sin in a college atmosphere not only of being different but of being different in a way that left a lot of people with the impression that he thought he was better than they were. — John Feinstein

It is abundantly clear that a total review of all intelligence programs is necessary so that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are fully informed as to what is actually being carried out by the intelligence community. — Dianne Feinstein

You don't often see Bobby Kelleher completely flustered, but he was that time. — John Feinstein

I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit, not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care. — Dianne Feinstein

I preserve things that are significant to me. Only time will determine what is important in the long term. But something can be rediscovered only if someone has collected and preserved it. — Michael Feinstein

I believe you should do three things every single day of your life," he said. "One, you should laugh. Two, you should think. Pause and think about your life. And third, you should cry. Get yourself into a state of emotion where you shed a tear. If you do all three of those things - laugh, think, and cry - well, that's one heck of a day." Eight — John Feinstein

After a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, the federal government has a profound obligation to help those in need, .. Right now, the victims of Hurricane Katrina need our help. Entire communities have been destroyed. Families have been torn apart. Many are still missing. Tens of thousands remain homeless. As the recovery proceeds, we in the Senate pledge to do everything in our power to help rebuild the shattered lives across the Gulf Coast. — Dianne Feinstein

Domestic violence causes far more pain than the visible marks of bruises and scars. It is devastating to be abused by someone that you love and think loves you in return. It is estimated that approximately 3 million incidents of domestic violence are reported each year in the United States. — Dianne Feinstein

I feel like if they can handle me, they can probably handle any crowd on the road or any kind of adversity that may come up in a game. — John Feinstein

When the gunman realizes that nobody else is armed, he will lay down his weapons and turn himself in ... that's just human nature. — Dianne Feinstein

Rogue internet pharmacies continue to pose a serious threat to the health and safety of Americans. Simply put, a few unethical physicians and pharmacists have become drug suppliers to a nation. — Dianne Feinstein

All vets are mentally ill in some way and government should prevent them from owning firearms. — Dianne Feinstein

Once you sacrifice your rights, it's hard to get those rights protected again. — Dianne Feinstein

Gentlemen, as sure as I'm sitting here now, the result of continuation of a non-system, the ostrich-like head-in-the-sand attitude, the constant rejection of any efforts to solve this problem, will produce an Armageddon in the American population in those states where there is a big problem. — Dianne Feinstein

A few years ago, when I was writing songs for my first album, I was staying with Michael Feinstein as I often did. I was working on a pilot. My grandma was very sick at the time. She died of complications from alcoholism. She always used to say [in his grandma's voice], "Red wine is good for my heart. That's what my doctor said." And we'd say, "Yeah, but not for breakfast." Unfortunately, it was the thing that killed her. I felt inspired to write a song about her and what that meant for her life and for all of us. I was writing it in Michael's house. — Cheyenne Jackson

Never be proud of doing the right thing; — John Feinstein

Sister Boom Boom - a half-Catholic, half-Jewish drag queen named Jack Fertig, who wore a whore's makeup and a nun's habit and vamped it up with the other political pranksters in the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence - was an especially aggravating thorn in Feinstein's side. Boom Boom ran a remarkably aggressive campaign against Feinstein during her 1983 reelection bid, under the slogan "Nun of the Above," eventually winning twenty-three thousand votes. — David Talbot

Women have begun to see that if I go through that doorway, I take everybody through it. — Dianne Feinstein

And, I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that's what I did. I was trained in firearms. I'd walk to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me. — Dianne Feinstein

They walked through the hallways of the stadium, Dowling taking him on a tour of every locker room in the building. — John Feinstein

We have no regulation of drones in the United States in their commercial use. You can see drones some day hovering over the homes of Hollywood luminaries, violating privacy. This question has to be addressed. And we need rules of operation on the border, by police, by commercial use, and also by military and intelligence use. — Dianne Feinstein

'No Child Left Behind' requires states and school districts to ensure that all students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special education students should not be left out of these accountability mechanisms. — Dianne Feinstein

So there will be a bill. We've been working on it now for a year. — Dianne Feinstein

Bob Woodward, this is Steve Thomas. — John Feinstein

Coney Island was the centre of the world for me. I loved the rides, the hot dogs - I've never gotten over it. — Harold Feinstein

I have very deep concern about the legacy of the Rehnquist court and its efforts to restrict congressional authority to enact legislation by adopting a very narrow view of several provisions of the Constitution, including the commerce clause and the 14th Amendment.This trend, I believe, if continued, would restrict and could even prevent the Congress from addressing major environmental and social issues of the future. — Dianne Feinstein

The criteria for serving one's country should be competence, courage and willingness to serve. When we deny people the chance to serve because of their sexual orientation, we deprive them of their rights of citizenship, and we deprive our armed forces the service of willing and capable Americans. — Dianne Feinstein

The Gershwin legacy is extraordinary because George Gershwin died in 1937, but his music is as fresh and vital today as when he originally created it. — Michael Feinstein

so-and-so is using?' You just knew. I never held it against anyone. It was one of those things where you knew they were just trying to keep their jobs, extend their careers. I guess I didn't — John Feinstein

An inflated balloon
impressive to look at but hollow at the core and easily punctured. — Dianne Feinstein

What we're going to see is the emergence of the lone wolf rather than the planning of large numbers of people to carry out large attacks ... Explosives are getting more sophisticated. — Dianne Feinstein