Barbara Bush Quotes

My health is very good. ~ Barbara Bush

Almost all first ladies have had tremendous power on personnel issues, whether the public realized it or not, whether it was Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan or whoever. ~ Dee Dee Myers

I'm taking a vow not to advise. ~ Barbara Bush

I have been on the receiving end of many blessings in my life, few as great as having known George and Barbara Bush. ~ Christopher Buckley

You have to love your children unselfishly. That's hard. But it's the only way. ~ Barbara Bush

Some people give time, some money, some their skills and connections, some literally give their life's blood ... but everyone has something to give. ~ Barbara Bush

The state dinner is almost a formula, but you try to make it interesting. You try not to overload it with too many political types. You try to get a cross section. ~ Barbara Bush

I'm not being outspoken or pro or con abortion. ~ Barbara Bush

I'm a little old-fashioned. ~ Barbara Bush

Nobody likes a child to die or losing an election. ~ Barbara Bush

I don't like attacking. ~ Barbara Bush

But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? ~ Barbara Bush

The Titanic was built by professionals. The Ark was built by volunteers. ~ Barbara Bush

I hate the fact that people think 'compromise' is a dirty word. ~ Barbara Bush

I look like Barbara Bush in drag." Aunt Jettie ~ Molly Harper

I hate abortions, but just could not make that choice for someone else. ~ Barbara Bush

Forget the Bush family, they are the most negligible family in the country. They are unintelligent, they are reasonably decorative, they are obedient to the great economic powers. Nixon said something interesting to Murray Kempton about Bush senior when he became President. Murray and Nixon used to have lunch, and when Murray said, "Well, what is this Bush like?" Nixon said, "Oh, nothing, nothing there, just a lightweight. He's the sort of person you appoint to things, like the U.N., the CIA. But that Barbara Bush, she's really something; she's really vindictive!" - which was the highest complement that Nixon could deliver. ~ Gore Vidal

It was the dumbest thing I had ever seen, but it's a family thing, and I guess it's clean. ~ Barbara Bush

I mean you can learn how to build a bullet or build a gun or build a bomb on the Internet. ~ Barbara Bush

As if we don't have enough volence on television. After her husband accidentally hit two spectators with golf balls during a celebrity golf tournament. ~ Barbara Bush

I think togetherness is a very important ingredient to family life. ~ Barbara Bush

I think the country has had enough Bushes. ~ Barbara Bush

For most of my life, I would have automatically said that I would opt for conscientious objector status, and in general, I still would. But the spirit of the question is would I ever, and there are instances where I might. If immediate intervention would have circumvented the genocide in Rwanda or stopped the Janjaweed in Darfur, would I choose pacifism? Of course not. Scott Simon, the reporter for National Public Radio and a committed lifelong Quaker, has written that it took looking into mass graves in former Yugoslavia to convince him that force is sometimes the only option to deter our species' murderous impulses.

While we're on the subject of the horrors of war, and humanity's most poisonous and least charitable attributes, let me not forget to mention Barbara Bush (that would be former First Lady and presidential mother as opposed to W's liquor-swilling, Girl Gone Wild, human ashtray of a daughter. I'm sorry, that's not fair. I've no idea if she smokes.) When the administration censored images of the flag-draped coffins of the young men and women being killed in Iraq - purportedly to respect "the privacy of the families" and not to minimize and cover up the true nature and consequences of the war - the family matriarch expressed her support for what was ultimately her son's decision by saying on Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? I mean it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something ~ David Rakoff

There are a lot of ways to serve, and being president is not the only one, and I would hope that someone else would run. ~ Barbara Bush

I'm not a one-issue person. ~ Barbara Bush

Family and friends and faith are the most important things in your life and you should be building friendships. ~ Barbara Bush

You get nothing done if you don't listen to each other. ~ Barbara Bush

I want to still be able to garden while I can bend over. ~ Barbara Bush

At the end of your life you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a parent. ~ Barbara Bush

I really feel very strongly that the person who runs for office is the courageous one, and the one who everybody has to know. ~ Barbara Bush

I don't like the blame game, though. ~ Barbara Bush

I do have the most marvelous husband, children, and grandchildren. ~ Barbara Bush

The home is the child's first school, the parent is the child's first teacher, and reading is the child's first subject. ~ Barbara Bush

Three publishers came to me at the White House after George lost and said, 'We would like to publish your book.' I said, 'Well, I don't have a book,' and they said well it's a well known fact that you have kept diaries. ~ Barbara Bush

If more people could read, write, and comprehend, we could be much closer to solving so many of the other problems our country faces today. ~ Barbara Bush

You know sit with your arm around a little kid and read. It not only teaches them to read but it keeps the family strong. ~ Barbara Bush

George is the best little dishwasher in Texas. ~ Barbara Bush

Look, I am in the establishment because my dad, the greatest man alive was president of the United States and my brother, who I adore as well as fantastic brother was president. Fine, I'll take it. I guess I'm part of the establishment Barbara Bush is my mom. I'll take that, too. ~ Jeb Bush

I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell my children that, they just about throw up. ~ Barbara Bush

I'm worried about parents who aren't parenting. ~ Barbara Bush

Nancy Reagan was a perfectionist, and I am not. ~ Barbara Bush

Whether you are talking about education, career, or service, you are talking about life. And life must really have joy. It's supposed to be fun. ~ Barbara Bush

Value your friendship. Value your relationships. ~ Barbara Bush

The personal things should be left out of platforms at conventions. You can argue yourself blue in the face, and you're not going to change each other's minds. It's a waste of your time and my time. ~ Barbara Bush

Believe in something larger than yourself ... get involved in the big ideas of your time. ~ Barbara Bush

You know, for one glorious half hour, I was the mother of the president-elect. ~ Barbara Bush

One thing was for sure: Barbara Bush was willing to speak her mind. That was something she did quite frequently in later years. Mother's quick wit and self-deprecating humor endeared her to millions of Americans. Her willingness to speak her mind stood in contrast to some tightly scripted political spouses. As a result of her wide following, she helped many Americans understand and love her husband. ~ George W. Bush

You just don't luck into things as much as you'd like to think you do. You build step by step, whether it's friendships or opportunities. ~ Barbara Bush

I don't think that's healthy for the country when anyone thinks their morals are better than anyone else's. ~ Barbara Bush

Well, look at what people are doing for returned veterans now. The wounded warriors. They're working hard to make the wounded veterans feel that they are loved and welcomed home, unlike Vietnam. It was not a very kind, gentle world then. I think we are kinder and gentler. ~ Barbara Bush

My son, George, has been a bad, bad boy! Right, George? ~ Barbara Bush

I'm not a competitive person, and I think women like me because they don't think I'm competitive, just nice. ~ Barbara Bush

People who worry about their hair all the time, frankly, are boring. ~ Barbara Bush

A few months ago, I was sitting morosely at my desk, wondering why I had ever agreed to review Barbara Bush: A Memoir for an English newspaper. The experience was proving to be a degradation of the act of reading. Imagine, if you will, being strapped into a chair and made to listen to Liberace playing the piano for hour upon hour. Or imagine being fed chocolate dinner mints, like a hapless goose, until you are on the verge of explosion. Such was my lot. ~ Christopher Hitchens

I was one of the first people to almost actually vomit over hearing the use of the phrase "family values" and I pride myself on never having fallen for the idea that Barbara Bush was sweet and grandmotherly. I met Barbara Bush and, as I expected, she was a tank with eyes, not a nice person at all and why should that blow anybody away? ~ Paula Poundstone

You don't just luck into things as much as you would like to think you do. You build step by step, whether it is friendships or opportunities. ~ Barbara Bush

Life has changed enormously, and I hope - I hope more people read good things. ~ Barbara Bush

I think a lot of our problems are because people don't listen to our children. It is not always easy. They're not always so brilliant that you want to spend hours with them. But it is very important to listen to them. ~ Barbara Bush

Why be afraid of what people will say? Those who care about you will say, Good luck! and those who care only about themselves will never say anything worth listening to anyway. ~ Barbara Bush

Let's judge a man on what he's done. ~ Barbara Bush

Future of his nation does not depend on what happens at the White House, but what happens at your house ~ Barbara Bush

War is not nice. ~ Barbara Bush

Raising five boys is a handful, trust me. ~ Barbara Bush

Describing life out of the public eye to David Letterman, December 6th, 1996 It's been different. I started driving again. I started cooking again. My driving's better than my cooking. George has discovered Sam's Club. ~ Barbara Bush

I'm a great believer that the most important years are the sort of early years but the preschool years and then into the first and second grades. If you get a good base in the first and second grade and you can read, you can do anything. ~ Barbara Bush

Suddenly women's lib had made me feel my life had been wasted. ~ Barbara Bush

Show me a wife who doesn't offer advice and I'll show you one who doesn't care very much. ~ Barbara Bush

And so, as they climb the ladder of achievement, I'd simply say, remember what Barbara Bush told those girls at Wellesley: "What happens in your house is more important than what happens in the White House." ~ George H. W. Bush

You try to do something every single day that will help an American or maybe someone overseas. ~ Barbara Bush

To this day George Sr. is the soft touch and I'm the enforcer. I'm the one who writes them a letter and says 'Shape up!' He writes, 'You're marvelous.' ~ Barbara Bush

Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people. ~ Barbara Bush

I'm a liberal when it comes to human rights, the poor; so's George Bush ... But Liberal and Conservative don't mean much to me anymore. Does that mean we care about people and are interested and want to help? And if that makes you a Liberal, so be it. ~ Barbara Bush

My worst expectations never happened. ~ Barbara Bush

Whatever the era ... one thing will never change: Fathers and mothers, if you have children, they must come first. ~ Barbara Bush

It seems to me I spent my life in car pools, but you know, that's how I kept track of what was going on. ~ Barbara Bush

Make a commitment to do something, anything, every day to make your creative life a real part of your daily routine. ~ Barbara Delaney

It's clearly a budget. It's got lots of numbers in it. ~ George W. Bush

Devout or not, all owned and carried Books of Hours, the characteristic fashionable religious possession of the 14th century noble. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

No one else can fight your battles for you. In the end we all stand alone. So when it comes your time to stand front and center, raise your chin high, look everyone straight in the eye and know in your heart that you're up to the challenge. ~ Barbara Freethy

The anti-Japanese resistance was as familiar a theme in North Korean cinema as cowboys and Indians was in early Hollywood. ~ Barbara Demick

The secret of the truly successful, I believe, is that they learned very early in life how not to be busy. They saw through that adage, repeated to me so often in childhood, that anything worth doing is worth doing well. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

Iraq is no diversion. It is a place where civilization is taking a decisive stand against chaos and terror, we must not waver. ~ George W. Bush

We've created rules and taxes on top of every aspiration of people, and the net result is we're not growing fast, income is not growing. ~ Jeb Bush

Zak felt himself drawing inward like a snail, pulling back all his vulnerable parts, which was just about everything, and hiding inside his shell. Trouble was he didn't have a thick shell. ~ Barbara Elsborg

Look what's happened to Barack Obama over the last two years or George Bush for eight. It's a blood sport. But at some point I may feel the need to run for office again. ~ Joe Scarborough

I just say I'm an artist who works with pictures and words. ~ Barbara Kruger

When no one was watching, he allowed himself a moment of self-pity. Maybe this was all he deserved, to be used and discarded like the piece of trash he was. He'd never be loved. He didn't deserve that either. ~ Barbara Elsborg

They sounded different from the mouth of a young mother than they did from the mouth of a widow. This was because the words did not come straight off the page. They percolated up through the silt and gravel of real people's lives so that the meaning in them was fluid, not fixed. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

The entire cosmos is one vast burning bush, permeated by the fire of the divine power and glory ~ Kallistos Ware

Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy To kings that fear their subjects treachery? ~ William Shakespeare

The president (George W. Bush) says let's have private accounts, and take the surplus money that's being gathered now in Social Security and put it into private accounts. That works. ~ Mitt Romney

We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve nowadays are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our nation's uniform. ~ George W. Bush

I can think of no honorable answer. Why must some of us deliberate between brands of toothpaste, while others deliberate between damp dirt and bone dust to quiet the fire of an empty stomach lining? There is nothing about the United States I can really explain to this child of another world. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

We've climbed the mighty mountain. I see the valley below, and it's a valley of peace. ~ George W. Bush

When it comes to the common rights and needs of men and women, there is no clash of civilizations. The requirements of freedom apply fully to Africa and Latin America and the entire Islamic world. The peoples of the Islamic nations want and deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as people in every nation. And their governments should listen to their hopes. ~ George W. Bush

Love is that micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being ~ Barbara Fredrickson

We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities. ~ George W. Bush

People don't realize that the Obama Administration has been, if anything, harder on whistleblowers than the Bush Administration. Part of the reason is that they know that the response will be more muted because the traditional constituency supporting whistleblowers just happen to be the same constituency as Obama's. ~ Jonathan Turley

The man was in his late thirties, with coarse black hair and a powerfully angled face. The horse with him made a sudden noise, a high whining sound, and its graceful head tossed, jerked. The man let the reins go, and the horse galloped to the fence where Zeke stood waiting.
Mattie glanced at him. He'd climbed onto the fence and leaned over the top, softly whistling a series of notes. On his face was an expression Mattie had never seen - equal parts joy and sorrow. ~ Barbara Samuel

Dulcie always found a public library a little upsetting, for one saw so many odd people there ... ~ Barbara Pym