Gaffe Quotes

The Jackson gaffe, with its Oedipal violence ("I want to cut his nuts out"), is especially poignant because it goes to the heart of a generational conflict in the black community, concerning what we will say in public and what we say in private. For it has been a point of honor, among the civil rights generation, that any criticism or negative analysis of our community, expressed, as they often are by white politicians, without context, without real empathy or understanding, should not be repeated by a black politician when the white community is listening, even if (especially if) the criticism happens to be true (more than half of all black American children live in single-parent households). ~ Zadie Smith

Spend hundreds of millions; talk endlessly about issues; present 12-point plans for education, the economy, and the environment. But in the end, the election of our next president can turn on a gaffe. ~ Jack Germond

The Galvanick Lucipher is of antique design. Ghnxh, who is about a hundred years old, can only smile in condescension at Waterhouse's U.S Navy flashlight. In the sotto voce one might use to correct an enourmous social gaffe, he explains that the galvanic lucifer is of such a superior design as to make any further reference to the Navy model a grating embarrassment for everyone concerned. ~ Neal Stephenson

I know the human being and fish can co-exist peacefully. ~ George W. Bush

It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago ~ Dan C. Quayle

Misquotation is quotology's swamp. Amateur quoters mix and mangle Shakespeare and Scripture. Professors gaffe and printers bungle. It's a mess we must wade into. ~ Willis Regier

Make sure of two things: Be careful
microphones are always hot, and understand that in Washington, DC, a gaffe is when you tell the truth. So, be careful. ~ Joe Biden

As a journalist, I can also now understand his (Patrick O'Brian's)idea that the Q&A is not particularly civilized - let alone a sports media press scrum. The formats don't necessarily further understanding between two people. It is not always true conversation - a discussion that unearths nuggets of insight. It too often seems like interviewers are running through a pre-fab checklist, looking for a Tweetable quote, trolling for a gaffe, or ticking off pre-conceived points like those on a medical checklist at the doctor's office. It can feel invasive, like a trip to the proctologist - in front of an audience. ~ Knute Berger

If Lincoln were alive today he'd be turning over in his grave. ~ Gerald R. Ford

A gaffe is a politician inadvertently telling an inconvenient truth. ~ Michael Kinsley

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle-as we did in the OJ trial-or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina-or as a fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time. ~ Barack Obama

When the President does it , that means that it is not illegal. ~ Richard M. Nixon

Democrats can cackle all they want about the gaffe-prone Romney's elitist cultural insensitivity in Jerusalem. Their hero Obama is no more willing to acknowledge and question the racial Darwinism that substitutes culture for genes than he is to recognize and criticize Israel's racist oppression of the Palestinians. He at once embodies, epitomizes, and embraces that cultural white supremacism in a way that does no small damage to non-white prospects at home and abroad. ~ Paul Street

The other financial genius, John McCain, said the fundamentals of our economy are strong, and then yesterday he wanted to fire the head of the SEC
except you can't as president fire the SEC chairman, it's a non-governmental job. Sarah Palin said today one more gaffe from McCain, and she's going to drop him from the ticket. ~ Bill Maher

A gaffe in Washington is someone telling the truth, and telling the truth has never hurt me. ~ Joe Biden

Well,' she said, adjusting a pot lid, 'I have my family of origin, which is you and Mom. And then Jaime's family, my family of marriage. And hopefully, I'll have another family, as well. Our family, that we make. Me and Jaimie.'
Now I felt bad, bringing this up so soon after Jamie's gaffe. 'You will,' I said.
She turned around, crossing her arms over her chest. 'I hope so. But that's just the thing, right? Family isn't something that's supposed to be static or set. People marry in, divorce out. They're born, they die. It's always evolving, turning into something else. even that picture of Jamie's family was only the true representation for that one day. But the next , someone had probably changed. It had to.'
...
Later, when the kitchen had filled up with people looking for more wine, and children chasing Roscoe, I looked across all the chaos at Cora, thinking that of course you would assume our definitions would be similar, since we had come from the same place. But this wasn't actually true. We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions were as different as we were ourselves. ~ Sarah Dessen