“Once a year ask the boss, "What do I or my people do that helps you to do your job?" and "What do I or my people do that hampers you?"”

“I just don't know," I said, my voice sounding bumby, not like mine, "how do you help someone who doesn't want your help. What do you do when you can't do anything?”

“If you ask people what they've always wanted to do, most people haven't done it. That breaks my heart.”

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. ”

“I would like people to recognize in looking at my story that the person who has the most to do with what happens to you is you. It's not the environment, it's not the other people who were there trying to help you or trying to stop you. It's what you decide to do and how much effort you put behind it.”

“You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”

“People ask me, "What are you going to do to develop jobs in your state?" Well, that's not my job as a US senator to bring industry to the state. That’s the lieutenant governor’s job, that’s your state senators’ and assemblymen’s job. That’s your secretary of state’s job, to make a climate in the state that says, ‘Y’all come.’”

“My job is to assist the common people, I do politics for the people, not for me”

“It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone.”

“I also say to all of you listening in the Chamber and outside that I feel very proud to be slipping the captain’s armband onto my shirt sleeve again today. That is why, in all humility, I ask for your assistance as we seek to do our duty here. I say to this Assembly and to the people that I am not the boss – they, the people, are the boss.”