Joe Biden: Trending quotes (page 2)

“Most of all I was numb, but there were moments when the pain cut through like a shard of broken glass. I began to understand how despair led people to just cash it in; how suicide wasn't just an option but a rational option.”

Joe Biden

Page 80
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Pain , People , Understanding , Suicide

“Like millions of Americans, they're asking questions as profound as they are ordinary. Questions they never thought they would have to ask: Should mom move in with us now that dad is gone? Fifty, sixty, seventy dollars to fill up the car? Winter's coming. How we gonna pay the heating bills? Another year and no raise? Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care? Now, we owe more on the house than it's worth. How are we going to send the kids to college? How are we gonna be able to retire? That's the America that George Bush has left us, and that's the America that George -- excuse me, if John McCain is elected president of the United States.”

Joe Biden

Joe Biden's vice presidential candidacy acceptance speech at the DNC, 2008. http://www.nathanielturner.com/americageorgebushhasleftus.htm
2000s

Health , Cars , Moms , Question

“I don’t think John Edwards knows what the heck he is talking about. John Edwards wants you and all the Democrats to think, ‘I want us out of there,’ but when you come back and you say, ‘O. K., John. What about the chaos that will ensue? Do we have any interest, John, left in the region?’ Well, John will have to answer yes or no. If he says yes, what are they? What are those interests, John? How do you protect those interests, John, if you are completely withdrawn? Are you withdrawn from the region, John? Are you withdrawn from Iraq, John? In what period? So all this stuff is like so much Fluffernutter out there. So for me, what I think you have to do is have a strategic notion. And they may have it—they are just smart enough not to enunciate it.”

Joe Biden

Speaking on Edwards' position for immediate withdrawal of about 40,000 American troops from Iraq (February 5, 2007), reported in the New York Observer http://www.observer.com/20070205/20070205_Jason_Horowitz_pageone_newsstory1-2.html
2000s

Thinking

“You can’t talk about the civil rights movement in this country without talking about Jewish freedom riders and Jack Greenberg. You can’t talk about the women’s movement without talking about Betty Friedan. I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else. […] It wasn’t anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,’ it was the social media. Literally. That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes. That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace. Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good.”

Joe Biden

21 May 2013 Politico https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico44/2013/05/biden-jewish-heritage-is-american-heritage-164525 and 22 May 2013 NYmag http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/biden-praises-jews-goes-too-far.html
2013

Women , People , Art , Thinking

“I had no place to go. It was up or out.”

Joe Biden

Page 58
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

“I liked to go at night when I thought there was a better chance of finding a fight. I was always looking for a fight. I had not known I was capable of such rage. I knew I had been cheated of a future, but I felt I'd been cheated of a past, too. The underpinnings of my life had been kicked out from under me… and it wasn't just the loss of Neilia and Naomi. All my life I'd been taught about our benevolent God. This is a forgiving God, a just God, a God who knows people make mistakes. This is a God who is tolerant. This is a God who gave us free will to be able to doubt. This was a loving God, a God of comfort. Well, I didn't want to hear anything about a merciful God. No words, no prayer, no sermon gave me ease. I felt God had played a horrible trick on me, and I was angry. I found no comfort in the Church. So I kept walking the dark streets to try to exhaust the rage.”

Joe Biden

Page 81
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Love , Life , God , People

“In spite of the president's phone call, I remained a vocal critic of the Bush administration's foreign policy priorities through that summer because I didn't trust most of the people he had around him. The civilians in the Department of Defense were unlike any I'd ever seen. They seemed to think our nation was so powerful that we could simply impose our will on the rest of the world with almost no ill consequence. It seemed to me that Rumsfeld and his chief deputy at Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, were so totally in thrall to that conservative think-tank-generated ideology that they were steering the president down a dangerous path. And they were so intent on overturning President Clinton's foreign policy initiatives that they were losing sight of the bigger goal, which was keeping America safe at home and engaged in doing good in the world.”

Joe Biden

Page 298
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

People , World , Home , Thinking

“The carnage was over, but there was still a bitter taste in my mouth.”

Joe Biden

Page 284
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

“The standard of judgment is no longer results but the flickering image of seriousness, skillfully crafted to squeeze into 30 seconds on the nightly news. In this world, emotion has become suspect - the accepted style is smooth, antiseptic and passionless.”

Joe Biden

On the national debate, Speech http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/10/us/biden-joins-campaign-for-the-presidency.html announcing entry into 1988 presidential race, Wilmington, Delaware (June 10, 1987)
1980s

World

“I'm running for president because I think that, with a lot of help, I can stem the tide of this slide and restore America’s leadership in the world and change our priorities. I will argue that my experience and my track record — both on the foreign and domestic side — put me in a position to be able to do that.
I would respectfully suggest to you that the Democrats out there understand I am the only person with a plan that can get out of Iraq without our interests in the region not falling apart.”

Joe Biden

Conference call https://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/01/31/cq_2212.html?pagewanted=all with reporters after announcing candidacy for the 2008 Democratic president nomination (January 30, 2007)
2000s

World , Thinking , Change , Help

“A better man might have handled the situation with more grace than I did. A better man would have been able to separate his personal life from his career.”

Joe Biden

Page 87
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Life , Personality

“The one thing I want my kids to remember about me is that I was an athlete. The hell with the rest of this stuff.”

Joe Biden

Barack Obama Reveals How He Popped the Question to Joe Biden, People Magazine, August 25, 2008, 2008-08-26 http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20221223_2,00.html,
2000s

Hell

“When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it." Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.”

Joe Biden

Biden-Palin Vice Presidential debates http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/transcripts/vice-presidential-debate.html, October 2, 2008
2000s

Parting , Country

“I believe all Americans are born with certain inalienable rights. As a child of God, I believe my rights are not derived from the Constitution. My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist. They were given to me and each of my fellow citizens by our creator, and they represent the essence of human dignity….”

Joe Biden

Page 194
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

God

“There's good reason to be excited. You have the first woman running who is qualified, and a very attractive African-American who has demonstrated crossover appeal. I got involved in politics 40 years ago during the civil rights movement, so yes, it's an exciting thing.”

Joe Biden

Biden officially running for president, MSNBC.com, January 31, 2007, 2007-02-01 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16901147/,
The average voter out there understands that the next president is going to have to be prepared to immediately step in without hesitation and end our involvement in Iraq. It's very difficult to figure out how to move on to broader foreign policy concerns without fixing Iraq first.

“I kept trying to tell people that just because I was young didn't mean I could speak for all young people.”

Joe Biden

Page 84
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

People

“I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one.”

Joe Biden

To Slobodan Milosevic. Page 266.
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

War , Thinking

“I wasn't built to look the other way because the law demanded it. The law might be wrong.”

Joe Biden

Source: 2000s, Promises to Keep (2008), Page 42

Law , Way

“The average voter out there understands that the next president is going to have to be prepared to immediately step in without hesitation and end our involvement in Iraq. It's very difficult to figure out how to move on to broader foreign policy concerns without fixing Iraq first.”

Joe Biden

Biden officially running for president, MSNBC.com, January 31, 2007, 2007-02-01 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16901147/,
2000s

Understanding

“But I respectfully suggest, Major, that the responsibility is slightly above your pay grade, to decide whether to take the nation to war alone, or to take the nation to war part way, or to take the Nation to work half-way. That is a real tough decision.”

Joe Biden

To Scott Ritter, in hearings about the disarmament process, before the Senate Committee on Armed Services (September 1998), quoted in * 2020-01-07 Joe Biden, five years before invasion, said the only way of disarming Iraq is "taking Saddam down" Ryan Grim The Intercept https://theintercept.com/2020/01/07/joe-biden-iraq-war-history/
1990s

Way , War , Decision , Parting