Christine Gregoire

We all leave personal legacies for the people we know and love.

I will never be able to create a budget from scratch with the amount of time that I have, but my instructions remain the same: Give me a budget that has no new revenue.

I want to work on respecting individuals' dignity. Equal rights, that's where my heart is. That means equal rights and benefits, and that's what we need.

It was very constraining, much more than I ever would have thought, to run for governor.

I couldn't do that as attorney general. Why? Because they are my clients. You can't say they're not doing what they ought to be doing when you are the attorney general.

We can seize this time and do it our way and in the process be proud of ourselves and prosper as well.

We need to take advantage of the opportunity we have now to create a vision and become great.

It is time for us to turn a corner and come together, put our differences behind us and focus on the future.

We've established a Washington State Academy of Sciences that will enable us to make decisions based on science about what is right for our state, meaning the quality of our lives will get better.

We are thinking ahead to long-term care, aware that many folks don't plan ahead and won't be ready. We want to see to it that people will have choices.

In the field of health care, we are giving people access to insurance who have not had it before.

We must work to help all families and all communities realize their dream of a better future.

We may disagree on some things, but we can do so without being disagreeable.

Truly, the challenges we face are not Democratic challenges or Republican challenges. In fact, they are not political challenges at all; they are fiscal challenges, and educational challenges, and the challenges of figuring out how to take care of each other.

Surely no issue unites us more than our appreciation for our military personnel who are bringing aid to devastated countries, defending us against terrorism, and fighting to make a free election possible in Iraq.

One of the most powerful tools for empowering individuals and communities is making certain that any individual who wants to receive a quality education can do so.

It's our responsibility to pass on what we inherited, not to squander it, but to build on it.

It's been said that government doesn't create jobs, business does. For the most part, this is true. But government creates the environment in which businesses can excel and expand.

Education exposes young people to a broader world, a world full of opportunity and hope.

Education can lift individuals out of poverty and into rewarding careers.

There is just no reason why the richest nation in the world can't provide health care to all its people.

I'm free. I'm free to say what I feel.

Education is the foundation upon which we build our future.

When nearly a third of our high school students do not graduate on time with their peers, we have work to do. We must design our middle and high schools so that no student gets lost in the crowd and disconnected from his or her own potential.

It is up to us to live up to the legacy that was left for us, and to leave a legacy that is worthy of our children and of future generations.