Donna Shalala Quotes

You don't want to destroy the energy that comes out of a campaign.

I have to admit, in January and February I was in an absolute fuzz. I had no one on board. It wasn't that I didn't know what I was doing, but we didn't have all the pieces put together.

Sure, it is apparent that presidents are looking at polls, but they are also stepping up on issues. President Clinton stepped up on tobacco. He shaped the polls on the tobacco issue.

The economic dimension is very clear. I was at a dinner party, a mother got up, who's a very distinguished scientist, and said she had to get home and help her daughter with her homework. The two waiters, their faces changed. They were working their second jobs, they couldn't get home to help their kids with homework.

I have always hired people of different ages. Young people and older people. People in their 70s and in their 20s. People who are fully capable of talking back to me.

In fairy tales, the children are saved by caring adults. We need more caring adults in the lives of our children.

By putting people around me who will calm me down and slow me down and make sure I work through an issue.

I bring other constituencies - I also have ties to minority communities. And obviously, to the world of world-class research universities. So I can bring some constituencies that I'm used to working with.

Our young people are out on the streets looking for parties, a place to dance, looking for a scene. No institutions are providing them with alternatives, fun things to do that don't necessarily have alcohol at the center.

We have not yet concluded that needle-exchange programs do not encourage drug use.

Fear drives you and makes you better.

In every community, whether large or small, there are people who lead in their community in easy and difficult times.

But for me, it is when a student has died. I find the death of a young person the most difficult and painful of times. To explain it to other young people, to see a bright future snuffed out, is just awful. I am haunted by those deaths.

What you really remember at the beginning was that you have to throw a budget together. We made some terrible mistakes at the beginning in my own budget that took us at least a year to catch up on.

Higher education is one of few areas where this country competes with the rest of the world and wins. The best of American higher education outstrips any in the world. Look where the rest of the world goes for higher education, for graduate degrees. They come here.

I get to work at about 7:30 or 8 unless I have a breakfast meeting.

I'll be one of the spokespeople, one of the people who sells the Administration's plans.

You go to college not only for the latest knowledge but also to meet people from different backgrounds. That's the genius of the American higher-education system compared with the Europeans'. We don't simply skim the elite.

We have to mainstream everybody. No matter what their circumstances when they were growing up. Part of that is knowing that after they're finished with school, everybody in this country gets up and goes to work.

I think anyone that thought that we were coming in as a bunch of liberal Democrats to deliver more large-scale social programs was nuts. I sure didn't expect it.

I've spent my whole life with people underestimating me.