Chief Of Staff Quotes

Remember the picture of the president in the classroom, being told of the attack by chief of staff Andy Card? The American people thought they were seeing a man suddenly thrust into a grave challenge no one could have anticipated. ~ Howard Fineman

In reality, Kabila was no more than a petty tyrant propelled to prominence by accident. Secretive and paranoid, he had no political programme, no strategic vision and no experience of running a government. He refused to engage with established opposition groups or with civic organisations and banned political parties. Lacking a political organisation of his own, he surrounded himself with friends and family members and relied heavily for support and protection on Rwanda and Banyamulenge. Two key ministries were awarded to cousins; the new chief of staff of the army, James Kabarebe, was a Rwandan Tutsi who had grown up in Uganda; the deputy chief of staff and commander of land forces was his 26-year-old son, Joseph; the national police chief was a brother-in-law. Whereas Mobutu had packed his administration with supporters from his home province of Équateur, Kabila handed out key positions in government, the armed forces, security services and public companies to fellow Swahili-speaking Katangese, notably members of the Lubakat group of northern Katanga, his father's tribe. ~ Martin Meredith

Your American admiral said that he held me in the highest esteem, and thought that I conducted my defense perfectly. He said through his chief of staff that my conduct was beyond reproach and he had the greatest admiration for me. ~ Karl Donitz

Most of the 50 or so invitations you receive each week come from people inviting the President's Chief of Staff, not you. If you doubt that, ask your predecessor how many he received last week. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

The mainstream media may have trouble resisting the temptation to declare that Karl Rove has been demoted, but the truth is quite the contrary. By giving up his role as deputy White House chief of staff, Rove has been freed to do what he does best: shape big issues and develop strategies to win elections. ~ Fred Barnes

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself. ~ Scott McClellan

When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the 'fantastic' get-out-the-vote program ... some of this borders on RICO violations. ~ Patrick Caddell

The author deduces the best way James Baker serve Reagan as Chief of Staff was to continually remind him why he wanted to be president. ~ Chris Matthews

Hillary Clinton's opponent in the U.S. Senate race, the Republican she's going to be running against, has been married three times, had an affair with his chief of staff, had two kids with her while still married to his second wife. This is the first time in history that a Clinton is the 'family values' candidate. ~ Jay Leno

I'm done doing this!' Obama said, finally erupting. 'We've all agreed on a plan. And we're all going to stick to that plan. I haven't agreed to anything beyond that.'

The 30,000 was a 'hard cap,' he said forcefully. 'I don't want enablers to be used as wiggle room. The easy thing for me to do - politically - would actually be to say no' to the 30,000. Then he gestured out the Oval Office windows, across the Potomac, in the direction of the Pentagon. Referring to Gates and the uniformed military, he said. 'They think it's the opposite. I'd be perfectly happy -' He stopped mid-sentence. 'Nothing would make Rahm happier than if I said no to the 30,000.'

There was some subdued laughter.

'Rahm would tell me it'd be much easier to do what I want to do by saying no,' the president said. He could then focus on the domestic agenda that he wanted to be the heart of his presidency. The military did not understand. 'Politically, what these guys don't get is it'd be a lot easier for me to go out and give a speech saying, 'You know what? The American people are sick of this war, and we're going to get out of there. ~ Bob Woodward

You can LOBBY anyone. It is the great equalizer." – Chief of Staff Russell Jackson ~ Madam Secretary

Humankind will not be free until the last Kremlin commissar is strangled with the entrails of the last Pentagon chief of staff. ~ Edward Abbey

If I were president, I am not sure that I would offer Ed Rendell the job of chief of staff. ~ Ed Rendell

Cheney was among the best secretaries of defence the country has ever had. He was a very effective White House chief of staff. He did not make many enemies, and he had the ability to persuade people with that soft tone and very reasonable style of his. He's always been exceptionally good as the right-hand man. ~ Barton Gellman

According to James Mann's Rise of the Vulcans, once a year in the 1980s, the Reagan administration flew Cheney to a secret bunker to practice rebuilding the government if the Soviets destroyed Washington. Cheney's role, Mann reported, was to use his White House chief of staff experience to run the government in the name of any surviving cabinet member who made it to the bunker. The Reagan plan ignored the Presidential Succession Act, a 1947 law that put two top congressional leaders higher in the line of succession than cabinet secretaries. The program also made no plan for reconstituting Congress, because "it would be easier to operate without them," a participant told Mann. ~ Charlie Savage

I like how you call homosexuality an abomination."
"I don't say homosexuality's an abomination, Mr. President, the bible does."
"Yes it does. Leviticus-"
"18:22"
"Chapter in verse. I wanted to ask you a couple questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo Mcgary,insists on working on the sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it ok to call the police? Here's one that's really important, cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Red Skins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? ~ Aaron Sorkin

President Josiah Bartlet: Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.

Dr. Jenna Jacobs: I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does.

President Josiah Bartlet: Yes, it does. Leviticus.

Dr. Jenna Jacobs: 18:22.

President Josiah Bartlet: Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important 'cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing: While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignora ~ Aaron Sorkin

Being superintendent or the superintendent's chief of staff is important work, but there's no chance it's as difficult as being a teacher, and I hesitate to say that it's as important. ~ Timothy Noah

Then there were the baffling, unnecessary lies. At one point, for example, the president told me that chief of staff Reince Priebus didn't know we were meeting, which seemed incredible. The chief of staff should know when the president is dining alone with the FBI director. Then, later on in that same dinner, Trump said casually, "Reince knows we're meeting. ~ James Comey

At a national political convention, you have hundreds of people who consider themselves at least as important as the Secretary of Commerce. If it's a Democratic convention, you also have dozens of A-list Hollywood and music celebrities. (If it's a Republican convention, you have Bo Derek.) Also you have swarms of lower-ranking Washington minions with titles like Deputy Assistant to the Associate Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff who are trying to move up the ladder to Deputy Associate to the Assistant Acting Deputy Assistant Understudy. ~ Dave Barry

My Irish passport makes me look like a chief of staff for the Provisional IRA. ~ Jack Higgins

I can remember the morning after President Nixon won re-election in 1972. His chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, called a Cabinet meeting and told the members: 'You are all a bunch of burned-out volcanoes;' and asked for their resignations. ~ Helen Thomas

I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff. ~ Aleister Crowley

For people who don't know me, I practiced medicine in Casper, Wyoming for 25 years as an orthopedic surgeon, taking care of families in Wyoming. I've been chief of staff of the largest hospital in our state. My wife is a breast cancer survivor. ~ John Barrasso

The reason most of your staff are asleep and disengaged, is because you have boring, and bully managers, and no REAL Leaders to inspire and unleash potential. ~ Tony Dovale

Most people are interested in success, but not COMMITTED to success, which is why 85%+ of people seldom achieve their desired level of success. ~ Tony Dovale

Nothing stands today where it stood yesterday. The choice which life presents is ever more between growth and decay, perfection and deterioration. There is no standing still, not can be. Advance or recede, occupy or give place, are the stern and inoperative alternatives, [the] self-existing and self-enforcing law of life, from the cradle to the grave.

He who despairs of progress despises the hope of the world, and shuts himself out from the chief significance of assistance -- and is dead while he lives. ~ Frederick Douglass

Saint Paul lives in the Christian imagination as the chief sponsor of Christian contempt for Jews, the avatar of law versus grace, flesh versus spirit, works versus faith, Moses versus Jesus, the Old Covenant versus the New. This brutal dichotomizing was attributed to Paul most influentially by Martin Luther, who used a perceived Jewish legalism, materialism, and obsession with externals as stand-ins for the decadence of his nemesis, the pope. "Because the Papists, like the Jews," he wrote, "insist that anyone wishing to be saved must observe their ceremonies, they will perish like the Jews."39 After Luther, both Protestants and Catholics read Paul as the preeminent tribune of Jewish corruption - a misreading that had terrible consequences, especially in Luther's Germany, where the Volk were defined in ontological opposition to Juden. Paul's ~ James Carroll

Hope is the spotlight that shines on the mine fields of possibility ~ Tony Dovale

Would it not be wiser, then, to remit this part of reading and to allow the critics, the gowned and furred authorities of the library, to decide the question of the book's absolute value for us? Yet how impossible! We may stress the value of sympathy; we may try to sink our identity as we read. But we know that we cannot sympathise wholly or immerse ourselves wholly; there is always a demon in us who whispers, "I hate, I love", and we cannot silence him. Indeed, it is precisely because we hate and we love that our relation with the poets and novelists is so intimate that we find the presence of another person intolerable. And even if the results are abhorrent and our judgments are wrong, still our taste, the nerve of sensation that sends shocks through us, is our chief illuminant; we learn through feeling; we cannot suppress our own idiosyncrasy without impoverishing it. ~ Virginia Woolf

For every year past the age of 27, you need to take another step toward commitment somewhere in your life. Instead of freelancing, you get a staff job. Instead of renting, you buy. Fine, instead of couch-surfing, you rent. ~ Tracy McMillan

I forgot the maid who works in my P.G. and struggles to make money, every day, who is in fear that one day her cruel husband will find her out eventually and beat her and her son to death.
I forgot that auto driver I met on my way to M.G. road metro station, and who wanted to be in the army but gave up study due to the financial crisis.
I forgot that security guard I met at IIT Delhi, and who was forced to leave the study and marry at the age of 15.
I forgot those little kids I generally encounter at Railway stations and trains selling packets of pens @ Rs.25 per packet.
I forgot that 75 years old ricksha wala I met in sector 23 market with only one eye and high power lens
I forgot that washroom cleaning staff at my office who always welcomes me with a broad smile.
I forgot the dead body of that martyred soldier I saw at the Kashmir airport, laden with garlands of marigold and people shouting," jawan amar rahe!"
I forgot the scream of that pig near my office when a thick rope was brutally tied in its nose and it was forcefully taken by some people on a bike.
I almost forgot everything! ~ Sangeeta Mann

Ralph, escort Ms. MacKinnon to get her stuff. Come right back out, and don't touch anything near the crime scene.
I won't.
Oh, I know you won't. I was talking to Ralphie here. He gets a little ahead of himself sometimes, if you know what I mean.
Aw, Ma-I mean Chief-what'd you have to say that for? ~ Jane Taylor Starwood

I'm a storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move! ~ Howard Hawks

Colleges and departments of education have developed in response to the need for preparing the tens of thousands of teachers required to staff our immense public school system. That they have a most important function to discharge is plain for all to see. But instead of seeing that their products are equipped with sound learning in the various arts and sciences, they have ignored this and have concentrated almost exclusively upon methods of education. They have erected pseudo-science called "Education," most of whose courses are made up of commonplaces expressed in pretentious jargon. ~ Richard Weaver

I smiled at the stacks, inhaling again. Hundreds of thousands of pages that had never been turned, waiting for me. The shelves were a warm, blond wood, piled with spines of every color. Staff picks were arranged on tables, glossy covers reflecting the light back at me. Behind the little cubby where the cashier sat, ignoring us, stairs covered with rich burgundy carpet led up to the worlds unknown. 'I could just live here,' I said. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

At network television you could make a show like Freaks and Geeks, and even though 7 million people watch is every week, you were considered a terrible failure, and they got rid of you and staff. Now ... It's like a world where the replacements are the biggest fans in the world. It's, the Elvis Costellos of television are the winners. Creativity is king and it's very very exciting. ~ Judd Apatow

I can remember when I was a bit of an ETA fan myself. It was in 1973, when a group of Basque militants assassinated Adm. Carrero Blanco. The admiral was a stone-faced secret police chief, personally groomed to be the successor to the decrepit Francisco Franco. His car blew up, killing only him and his chauffeur with a carefully planted charge, and not only was the world well rid of another fascist, but, more important, the whole scheme of extending Franco's rule was vaporized in the same instant. The dictator had to turn instead to Crown Prince Juan Carlos, who turned out to be the best Bourbon in history and who swiftly dismantled Franco's entire system. If this action was 'terrorism,' it had something to be said for it. Everyone I knew in Spain made a little holiday in their hearts when the gruesome admiral went sky-high. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Navigators have had a huge impact in my life; I gave my life to Christ in college and the witness of The Navigators and their dynamic materials have provided a great foundation for my Christian life. As the founder of FOCUS, The Navigator staff has been a great resource to me and to my staff as we too seek to reach a generation of young leaders with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ~ Curtis Martin

The fact that creative powers come from an area of the mind that seems to be independent of the conscious will, and often emerge with a good deal of emotional disturbance in their wake, provides the chief analogy between prophecy and the arts ... Some people pursue wholeness and integration, others get smashed up, and fragments are rescued from the smash of an intensity that the wholeness and integration people do not reach. ~ Northrop Frye

I tell my staff, we're riding a tour bus around, and we're going to stop and look at some weird stuff - but we're taking our viewers around safely. They're just looking out the window at it. I'm trying to create a sense of comfort for my center audience. ~ Chris Matthews

This is not your fight, brothers," Winn said quietly once they were alone. Chetan scowled at the Chief.
"Right. As if I will let you stupid Norsemen die alone," Chetan scoffed. "Of course it is my fight. You are my brother. Your fight is mine. ~ E.B. Brown

We all cry out that the world is corrupt,
and I fear too justly,
but we never reflect, what we have to thank for it, and that itis our open countenance of vice, which gives the lye to our private censures of it, which is its chief protection and encouragement. ~ Laurence Sterne

The chief enemy of peace is the spirit of unreason itself: an inability to conceive alternatives, an unwillingness to reconsider old prejudices, to part with ideological obsessions, to entertain new ideas or to improve new plans. ~ Lewis Mumford

I went to Ft Bragg and learned that Delta was indeed gearing up for the rescue. Still I was concerned the Reagan staff would not be willing to take the risk of sending an official military force into Laos. ~ Bo Gritz

Concentration of effort and the habit of working with a definite chief aim are two of the essential factors in success, which are always found together. One leads to the other. ~ David Frost

Most of the staff members were like that; they returned smiling after we hurt them. It was as if they had made a pact not to give up on us. ~ Ishmael Beah

John F. Kennedy, who seized the White House from Richard Nixon in a frenzied campaign that turned a whole generation of young Americans into political junkies, got shot in the head for his efforts, murdered in Dallas by some hapless geek named Oswald who worked for either Castro, the mob, Jimmy Hoffa, the CIA, his dominatrix landlady or the odious, degenerate FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. The list is long and crazy - maybe Marilyn Monroe's first husband fired those shots from the grassy knoll. Who knows? ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Today Ramon defended the garbage bin by Plumpy's back door, and I defended a shiny silver Mercedes because, according to Ramon, it represented the privileged white aristocracy of America trying to keep the Latino man down.

"Our duel," Ramon said, spinning his broom like a bo staff, "will represent the struggle our nation's currently engaged in."

"Please, we both know you're just going for home team advantage."

"You wound me, Sam. I can't help it if your crackerlike oppression gives me the better playing field." He did a quick hamstring stretch. "Suck it up."

"Fine," I said, "then I get the handicap."

"Sam, you're Texas. Texas always gets the handicap."

"I'm Team Texas again?"

He grinned, rolled his shoulders, and wiggled his arms, loosening them.

I gave up and nodded at the Mercedes. It looked old and expensive, especially in our parking lot. "Shiny."

Ramon snorted. "Classic. Check out the gullwing doors."

"Fine. Classic Shiny."

Ramon tossed an empty Plumpy's cup into the Dumpster. "Sometimes, Sammy, I question your manhood."

"A car is to get you from place to place. That's it."

Ramon shook his head at my ignorance.

"Whatever. Just try not to dent the car, Team Mexico."

"It's Team South America," he said.

"You do know that Mexico is in North America, right?"

"Yeah, but I have the whole contin ~ Lish McBride

To all the staff members that take care of us every single day, From Donnie Strack, to Joe Sharpe, Tony Katz, Dave Bliss, Josh Longstaff, Will, Wilson, St, Mark, Dwight, I could down the line, All you guys have made me a better player. I wish I had a Sharpie, So I could write all your names on here 'Cause you had a hand on this. You made me believe in myself. You made me a better person, A better player. Your words of encouragement, Your love, Your positivity, Got me through. And I thank you guys. ~ Kevin Durant

Confidence in one's self is the chief nurse of magnanimity, which confidence, notwithstanding, doth not leave the care of necessary furniture for it; and therefore, of all the Grecians, Homer doth ever make Achilles the best armed. ~ Philip Sidney

The story of FDR as U.S. Commander in Chief is a heroic war story of a president who had already overcome great adversity in facing polio but who went on to take the reins of our armed forces in the greatest conflagration in human history - on our behalf. ~ Nigel Hamilton

There's a real difference of what one believed was one's chief responsibility between American professors and Chinese professors. This was vividly revealed to me when I compared what I could learn in Chicago and what I could learn in China. ~ Chen-Ning Yang

Hoping to settle the wheelchair matter once and for all, Graham dragged his chief of construction, his chief of architecture, and a film crew out to Dulles Airport, whose escalators were approximately the same width as those planned for Metro. There he produced a variety of braces and crutches. As the cameras rolled, Graham rode up and down the escalators using one aid after another, climaxing by riding both directions in a wheelchair, facing up each time. Graham clearly believed he had proved beyond doubt that 'it is entirely possible, easily and safely, for wheelchair travelers to use escalators.' His aides watched in disbelief; a fit and fearless major general in his fifties hardly represented the disabled population, whatever braces he strapped to his legs. All he had proved, concluded the WMATA architect Sprague Thresher, was that 'if everybody who had to use a wheelchair was Jack Graham, we wouldn't need elevators. ~ Zachary M. Schrag

When I create a TV show, it's so that I can write it. I'm not an empire builder; my writing staff is usually a combination of two kinds of people - experts in the world the show is set in, and young writers who will not be unhappy if they're not writing scripts. ~ Aaron Sorkin

Outside the gates of the finca, watching the passing rows of tin-roofed shacks which represented the residential section of San Francisco de Paula, I began to think about The Old Man and the Sea, and I realized it was Ernest's counterattack against those who had assaulted him for Across the River. It was an absolutely perfect counterattack and I envisioned a row of snickering carpies bearing the likenesses of Dwight Macdonald and Louis Kronenberger and E.B. White, who in the midst of cackling, "Through! Washed Up! Kaput!" suddenly grab their groins and keel over. It is a rather elementary military axiom that he who attacks must anticipate the counterattack, but the critics, poor boys, would never make General Staff. As Ernest once said, "One battle doesn't make a campaign but critics treat one book, good or bad, like a whole goddamn war. ~ A. E. Hotchner

In America the chief accusation seems to be one of "Eroticism." This is odd, rather puzzling to my mind. Which Eros? Eros of the jaunty "amours," or Eros of the sacred mysteries? And if the latter, why accuse, why not respect, even venerate? ~ D.H. Lawrence

When you're editor-in-chief of a big magazine, you cannot be a cover girl for MAC; you cannot be the face of Givenchy - of course you can't; it's doesn't go with the job. ~ Carine Roitfeld

Libraries promote the sharing of knowledge, connecting people of all ages with valuable information resources. These dynamic and modern institutions, and the librarians who staff them, add immeasurably to our quality of life. ~ George W. Bush

My father was career military. He was a veteran, he was a doctor of political science, he taught at West Point and Air Command Staff and lectured at the War College. ~ Suzanne Collins

The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world'd luxuries, king by grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented. ~ Mark Twain

The novelist is required to create the illusion of a whole world with believable people in it, and the chief difference between the novelist who is an orthodox Christian and the novelist who is merely a naturalist is that the Christian novelist lives in a larger universe. He believes that the natural world contains the supernatural. And this doesn't mean that his obligation to portray the natural is less; it means it is greater. ~ Flannery O'Connor

All creation is one. What we do to one, we do to the entire web of life. ~ Chief Seattle

Sometimes, of course, the artist does give up, saying, in effect, "I've done enough". Prospero declares that the revels are ended, and breaks his staff - his author retires to Stratford. At the very end, Mann did something similar. Interestingly, in both instances, death came quite quickly after that. ~ Philip Kitcher

My agent said that every Monday after an episode of 'Entourage,' at the staff meeting at the agency, that's all they do is talk about the episode the night before. ~ Kevin Connolly

The bayonet has always been the weapon of the brave and the chief tool of victory ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

The chief source of problems is solutions. ~ Eric Sevareid

reputedly consulted with the spirit of a dead Sioux Indian chief. ~ David McCullough

UG staff is patching up wargs, and all surviving Guardians are tied up," Wraith said, "But they could probably use some medical attention. Especially the one dipshit with the idiotic Mohawk. He lost a lot of blood." "Because you ate him," Sin said wryly. Wraith blinked with exaggerated innocence. "Fighting makes me hungry. ~ Larissa Ione

It's possible that the chief of trauma surgery has things backwards. It's possible, even likely, that for all military medicine contributes to specialized skilks, it actually detracts from civilian medicine be diverting resources, research, and personnel from medical practices more relevant and applicable to the general good. ~ Ann Jones

Chief Coordinator of DALTO – the Department of Aid to the Less technically Oriented, working to induce backwards nations to come forwards. ~ Shirley Hazzard

Virtue without success is a fair picture shown by an ill light; but lucky men are favorites of heaven; all own the chief, when fortune owns the cause. ~ John Dryden