"You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." —Promoting his education reform at Townsend (Tenn.) Elementary School, Washington Post, February 22, 2001
	"We need to do what we need to do to get the bodies out of there, if they're there." —Bush's apology to Japanese, Chicago Tribune, February 14, 2001
"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it." —Reuters, May 5, 2000
	"Other Republican candidates may retort to personal attacks and negative ads." —Fund-raising letter from George W. Bush, quoted in the Washington Post, March 24, 2000 (a letter)
"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." —Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000
	"I think we agree, the past is over." —On his meeting with John McCain, Dallas Morning News, May 10, 2000
"The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case." —Pella, Iowa. Quoted by the San Antonio Express-News, Jan. 30, 2000
	"There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times." —Off camera quote campaigning in Naperville, Ill, Labor Day Sept. 4, 2000
"I understand small business growth. I was one." —New York Daily News, Feb. 19, 2000
	"I think it's important for those of us in a position of responsibility to be firm in sharing our experiences, to understand that the babies out of wedlock is a very difficult chore for mom and baby alike...I believe we ought to say there is a different alternative than the culture that is proposed by people like Miss Wolf in society...And, you know, hopefully, condoms will work, but it hasn't worked." —Meet the Press, Nov. 21, 1999
"I've changed my style somewhat, as you know. I'm less...I pontificate less, although it may be hard to tell it from this show. And I'm more interacting with people." —South Carolina Republican Debate, Feb. 15, 2000
	"I was raised in the West. The west of Texas. It's pretty close to California. In more ways than Washington, D.C., is close to California." —In Los Angeles as quoted by the Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2000
"The fact that he relies on facts...says things that are not factual...are going to undermine his campaign." —On Rudy Giuliani, New York Times, March 4, 2000
	"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" —Concord, New Hampshire Jan. 29, 2000
"It is not Reaganesque to support a tax plan that is Clinton in nature." —Los Angeles, Feb. 23, 2000
	"I don't remember debates. I don't think we spent a lot of time debating it.. Maybe we did, but I don't remember." —On discussions of Vietnam War while he attended Yale. Quoted by Washington Post, July 27, 1999
"The important question is, How many hands have I shaked?" —In response to why he hasn't spent more time in New Hampshire. Quoted by New York Times, Oct. 23, 1999
	"If you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign." —Hilton Head, South Carolina, Feb. 16, 2000
GOV. BUSH: "Because the picture on the newspaper. It just seems so un-American to me, the picture of the guy storming the house with a scared little boy there. I talked to my little brother, Jeb...I haven't told this to many people. But he's the governor of...I shouldn't call him my little brother...my brother, Jeb, the great governor of Texas." JIM LEHRER: "Florida" GOV. BUSH: "Florida. The state of the Florida." —The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, April 27, 2000
	"The only things that I can tell you is that every case I have reviewed I have been comfortable with the innocence or guilt of the person that I've looked at. I do not believe we've put a guilty... I mean innocent person, to death in the state of Texas." —All Things Considered, NPR, June 16, 2000
"Actually, I...this may sound a little West Texan to you, but I like it. When I'm talking about...when I'm talking about myself, and when he's talking about myself, all of us are talking about me." —Hardball, MSNBC, May 31, 2000
	"What I am against is quotas. I am against hard quotas, quotas they basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate, quotas, I think vulcanize society. So I don't know how that fits into what everybody else is saying, their relative positions, but that's my position." —The San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 21, 2000
"The administration I'll bring is a group of men and women who are focused on what's best for America, honest men and women, decent men and women, women who will see service to our country as a great privilege and who will not stain the house." —Des Moines Register debate, Iowa, Jan. 15, 2000
	"This is Preservation Month. I appreciate preservation. It's what you do when you run for president. You gotta preserve." —Speaking during "PERSEVERENCE Month" at Fairgrounds Elementary School in Nashua, N.H. Quoted by Los Angeles Times, Jan. 28, 2000
"The fundamental question is, 'Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?' I will be, but until I'm the president, it's going to be hard for me to verify that I think I'll be more effective." —In Wayne, Mich., as quoted in the New York Times, June 28, 2000
	BUSH: "First of all, Cinco de Mayo is not the independence day. That's dieciseis de Septiembre, and ..." MATTHEWS: "What's that in English?" BUSH: "Fifteenth of September." (Dieciseis de Septiembre = Sept. 16) —Hardball, MSNBC, May 31, 2000
"It was just inebriating what Midland was all about then." —1994 interview. Quoted in First Son by Bill Minutaglio
	"States should have the right to enact reasonable laws and restrictions particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life that otherwise could live." —Cleveland, June 29, 2000
"When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there." —Iowa Western Community College, Jan 21, 2000
	"There's not going to be enough people in the system to take advantage of people like me." —On the coming Social Security crisis; Wilton, Conn.; June 9, 2000
"We must all hear the universal call to like your neighbor just like you like to be liked yourself." —At a South Carolina oyster roast. Quoted in Financial Times, Jan. 14, 2000
	"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." —At a South Carolina oyster roast. Quoted in Financial Times, Jan. 14, 2000
"Unfairly but truthfully, our party has been tagged as being against things. Anti-immigrant, for example. And we're not a party of anti-immigrants. Quite the opposite. We're a party that welcomes people." —Campaigning in Cleveland, July 1, 2000

Click here for more Jacob Weisberg's Bushisms.
(text file)

Daily Quote...

Bush's interview with Andy Hiller...