"Here is what we know after more than a decade of Republican rule: Texas works. Even 'The New York Times' let it slip into its pages that, 'Texas is the future.'"

"My hope is that that person will come forward that can win the presidency that we can all get behind."

"In Michigan, a liberal democrat raised taxes and kept their government programs at the same level. And guess what? Their economy continued into the toilet, it continued down."

"I stand before you as the governor of Texas but also stand before you the son of two tenant farmers. Ray Perry who came home after 35 bombing missions over Europe to work his little corner of land out there and Amelia who made sure that my sister Milla and I had everything that we needed, included hand sewing my clothes until I went off to college."

"The fact is that America has been at her most prosperous when government and the private sector have been not at war, but in a wary, if often underplayed, alliance. History is unmistakable on this point."

"I think it's unfortunate that there exists only one path in America to complete social legitimacy, and that is marriage. I think, for instance, that it would be far easier for Americans to elect a black president or a female president than an unmarried president."

"Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse."

"One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam."