Quayle Quotes
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The Ultimate Collection of Quayle Quotes
Remember the last time the Republicans held the White House? No? Well, maybe these genuine quotes from Vice President Dan Quayle will jog your memory...:
"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is 'to be prepared'."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle (The New Yorker, October 10, 1988, p.102)
"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle winning friends while speaking
to the United Negro College Fund
"Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
Mars is essentially in the same orbit... somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"Are they taking DDT?"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle asking doctors at a Manhattan AIDS clinic about their treatments of choice. (NY Post, early May 92)
"Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is IN the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, Hawaii, September 1989
"You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, to the American Samoans,
whose capital Quayle pronounces "Pogo Pogo"
"We expect them [Salvadoran officials] to work toward the elimination of human rights."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"El Salvador is a democracy so it's not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans... I have heard a single voice."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, to the Phoenix Republican Forum, March 1990
"It's rural America. It's where I came from. We always refer to ourselves as real America. Rural America, real America, real, real, America."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"[I will never have] another Jimmy Carter grain embargo, Jimmy, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter grain embargo, Jimmy Carter grain embargo."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle during the Bentsen debate
"Target prices? How that works? I know quite a bit about farm policy. I come from Indiana, which is a farm state. Deficiency payments - which are the key - that is what gets money into the farmer's hands. We got loan, uh, rates, we got target, uh, prices, uh, I have worked very closely with my senior colleague, (Indiana Sen.) Richard Lugar, making sure that the farmers of Indiana are taken care of."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle on being asked to define the term "target prices." Quayle's press secretary then cut short the press conference, after two minutes and 30 seconds.
"I'm not going to focus on what I have done in the past what I stand for, what I articulate to the American people. The American people will judge me on what I am saying and what I have done in the last 12 years in the Congress."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I want to be Robin to Bush's Batman."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"We should develop anti-satellite weapons because we could not have prevailed without them in 'Red Storm Rising'."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"The US has a vital interest in that area of the country."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle Referring to Latin America.
"Japan is an important ally of ours. Japan and the United States of the Western industrialized capacity, 60 percent of the GNP, two countries. That's a statement in and of itself."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"Who would have predicted... that Dubcek, who brought the tanks in in Czechoslovakia in 1968 is now being proclaimed a hero in Czechoslovakia. Unbelievable."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle. Actually, Dubcek was the leader of the Prague Spring.
"May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world."
-- The Quayle's 1989 Christmas card. [Not a beacon of literacy, though.]
"Why wouldn't an enhanced deterrent, a more stable peace, a better prospect to denying the ones who enter conflict in the first place to have a reduction of offensive systems and an introduction to defensive capability. I believe that is the route this country will eventually go."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"Well, it looks as if the top part fell on the bottom part."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle referring to the collapsed section of the 880 freeway after the San Francisco earthquake of 1989.
"Getting [cruise missiles] more accurate so that we can have precise precision."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle referring to his legislative work dealing with cruise missiles
"I can identify with steelworkers. I can identify with workers that have had a difficult time."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle addressing workers at an Ohio steel plant, 1988
"Certainly, I know what to do, and when I am Vice President -- and I will be -- there will be contingency plans under different sets of situations and I tell you what, I'm not going to go out and hold a news conference about it. I'm going to put it in a safe and keep it there! Does that answer your question?"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle when asked what he would do if he assumed the Presidency (1988)
"Lookit, I've done it their way this far and now it's my turn. I'm my own handler. Any questions? Ask me ... There's not going to be any more handler stories because I'm the handler ... I'm Doctor Spin."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle responding to press reports that his aides have to, in effect, "handle" him.
"Bobby Knight told me this: 'There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.' In other words a good offense wins."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle comparing the offensive capabilities of the Warsaw Pact with the defensive system of NATO
"Let me just tell you how thrilling it really is, and how, what a challenge it is, because in 1988 the question is whether we're going forward to tomorrow or whether we're going to go past to the -- to the back!"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"We don't want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I have made good judgements in the Past. I have made good judgements in the Future."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"The future will be better tomorrow."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I have a very strong record on the Environment in the United States Senate."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I was known as the chief grave robber of my state."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"We will invest in our people, quality education, job opportunity, family, neighborhood, and yes, a thing we call America."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"We'll let the sunshine in and shine on us, because today we're happy and tomorrow we'll be even happier."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"This election is about who's going to be the next President of the United States!"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"Don't forget about the importance of the family. It begins with the family. We're not going to redefine the family. Everybody knows the definition of the family. [Meaningful pause] A child. [Meaningful pause] A mother. [Meaningful pause] A father. There are other arrangements of the family, but that is a family and family values."
"I've been very blessed with wonderful parents and a wonderful family, and I am proud of my family. Anybody turns to their family. I have a very good family. I'm very fortunate to have a very good family. I believe very strongly in the family. It's one of the things we have in our platform, is to talk about it."
"I suppose three important things certainly come to my mind that we want to say thank you for. The first would be our family. Your family, my family -- which is composed of an immediate family of a wife and three children, a larger family with grandparents and aunts and uncles. We all have our family, whichever that may be ... The very beginnings of civilization, the very beginnings of this country, goes back to the family. And time and time again, I'm often reminded, especially in this Presidential campaign, of the importance of a family, and what a family means to this country. And so when you say thanks I suppose the first thing that would come to mind would be to thank the Lord for the family."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"..Buzz Lukens took that fateful step..."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, confusing a Republican congressman allegedly accused of sexual assault with Astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
"Okay, I won't open it until then."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle after having been presented with an empty box that was to contain a gift from a sailing team in South America. He was told that the gift was not ready yet, but that it would be presented to him when they arrived in the United States.
Dan Quayle, in April 1991, was concerned that his advisors may be getting out of touch with real Americans. In order to combat this, he suggested that they "read People magazine."
"People that are really very wierd can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I'm going to be a vice president very much like George Bush was. He proved to be a very effective vice president, perhaps the most effective we've had in a couple of hundred years."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"The loss of life will be irreplaceable."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle after the San Francisco earthquake
"Let me tell you something. As we were walking around in the store, Marilyn and I were just really impressed by all the novelties and the different types of little things that you could get for Christmas. And all the people that would help you, they were dressed up in things that said 'I believe in Santa Claus.' And the only thing that I could think is that I believe in George Bush."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle at a garden center and produce store in Baltimore (from the Los Angeles Times, Douglas Jehl, November 6, 1988)
"It's a very valuable function and requirement that you're performing, so have a great day and keep a stiff upper lip."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle remarks to oil spill clean-up workers at Prince William Sound, May, 1989
"The President is going to benefit from me reporting directly to him when I arrive."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle remarks to oil spill clean-up workers at Prince William Sound, May, 1989
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I could take this home, Marilyn. This is something teenage boys might find of interest."
--Vice President Dan Quayle, when purchasing a South African Indian Doll that, when lifted, displays an erection.
"When you make as many speeches and you talk as much as I do and you get away from the text, it's always a possibility to get a few words tangled here and there."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle defending himself (LA Herald Examiner 10/3/88)
"Public Speaking is very easy."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle to reporters in 10/88
"I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I happen to be a Republican president- ah, the vice president."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle (Newsweek 4/9/90)
"I've never professed to be anything but an average student."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle during the VP debate in Omaha, Nebraska (10/88)
"The other day [the President] said, I know you've had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. (He paused, then said) Would you like a puppy?"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle (LA Times 5/21/89)
"In George Bush you get experience, and with me you get -- The Future!"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle in eastern Illinois (LA Times 10/19/88)
"The destruction, it is just very heart-rendering."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle attempting to say the SF earthquake wreckage was heart-rending (Newsweek 10/30/89)
"I spend a great deal of time with the President. We have a very close, personal, loyal relationship. I'm not, as they say, a potted plant in these meetings."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle defending himself (Tampa Tribune-Times 1/7/90)
"When I talked to him on the phone yesterday. I called him George rather than Mr. Vice President. But, in public, it's Mr. Vice President, because that is who he is."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle shortly after being named George Bush's running mate (8/28/88 the NY Times).
"I'm glad you asked me that. This gives me the perfect opportunity to talk about the problems with this Congress..."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle responding to reporter's questions about his use of Air Force Two to go on golf trips at the cost of $26,000/hour
"I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, never surrender to what is right."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, in a speech to the Christian Coalition
"We are leaders of the world of the space program. We have been the leaders of the world of our... of the space program and we're not going to continue where we're going to go, not withstanding the Soviet Union's demise and collapse -the former Soviet Union - we now have independent republics which used to be called the Soviet Union. Space is the next frontier to be explored. And we're going to explore. Think of all the things we rely upon in space today: communications from... Japan, detection of potential ballistic missile attacks. Ballistic missiles are still here. Other nations do have ballistic missiles. How do you think we were able to detect some of the Scud missiles and things like that? Space, reconnaissance, weather, communications - you name it. We use space a lot today."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"Sometimes cameras and television are good to people and sometimes they aren't. I don't know if it's the way you say it, or how you look."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I just don't believe in the basic concept that someone should make their whole career in public service."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"The message of David Duke, is this, basically: Big government, anti-big government, get out of my pocketbook, cut my taxes, put welfare people back to work. That's a very popular message. The problem is the messenger."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I do have a political agenda. It's to have as few regulations as possible."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
Sam, had a great time this weekend but the golf was lousey."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle in a handwritten note written to Sam Snead in the summer of 1991, after they had played a round of golf. (Herald-Times, Bloomington, IN, July 15, 1992)
"Who's responsible for the riots? The rioters!"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle giving an intelligent, in-depth analysis of the LA riots. (Herb Caen, SF Chronicle)
"I think especially in her position, a highly successful professional woman, it would be a real exception to have an unwed child."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle to The Chron's Jerry Roberts.
"I don't watch it, but I know enough to comment on it."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle defending his opinions about the TV show "Murphy Brown" [Las Vegas RJ 21 May 92]
"Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"Speaking as a man, it's not a woman's issue. Us men are tired of losing our women."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle talking about breast cancer
"I want to show you an optimistic sign that things are beginning to turn around."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle trying to convince reporters that the economy was doing better because a Burger King had a "now hiring" sign in the window. He was campaigning for reelection in Ontario, CA in January 1992.
"You have a part-time job and that's better than no job at all."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle after the manager of the Burger King had said that the jobs offered were part-time minimum wage jobs, which didn't pay enough to live on, and that "It's hard to find people who want to actually show up for the job."
"Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a cure for AIDS in the marketplace before Magic Johnson gets AIDS?"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, 11/13/91 (CNN)
"I deserve respect for the things I did not do."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"I feel that this [1981] is my first year, that next year is an election year, that the third year is the mid point and that the fourth year is the last chance I'll have to make a record since the last two years, I'll be a candidate again. Everything I do in those last two years will be posturing for the election. But right now I don't have to do that."
-- Senator Dan Quayle
"My position is that I understand from a medical situation, immediately after a rape is reported, that a woman normally, in fact, can go to the hospital and have a D and C. At that time... that is before the forming of a life. That is not anything to do with abortion."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle explaining that Dilatation and Curettage, a form of abortion which occurs after fertilization, is not really abortion.(the Washington post, 11/03/88)
"Add one little bit on the end... Think of 'potato,' how's it spelled? You're right phonetically, but what else...? There ya go...alright!"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle correcting a student's correct spelling of the word "potato" during a spelling bee at an elementary school in Trenton.
"I should have caught the mistake on that spelling bee card. But as Mark Twain once said, 'You should never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word.'"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, actually quoting from President Andrew Jackson.
"This president is going to lead us out of this recovery."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle at a campaign stop in California and and then at CA State University, Fresno (The Quayle Quarterly, Spring/Summer 1992)
"We have to do more than just elect a new president if we truly want to change this country."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"We are ready for any unforseen event that may or may not occur"
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"For NASA, space is still a high priority."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
"[The U.S. victory in Gulf war was a] stirring victory for the forces of aggression."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
And, finally:
"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
=================================================================== You said it, Dan!! Thanks to Ron Williams for all these quotes!
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