Mario Cuomo

Every minute brings a new opportunity. Every minute brings new growth, new experiences.

I think - something I learned recently looking up the meaning of ideology. If you look in American encyclopedias, it says, you know, 'Rules for - basic rules for a system of economics or politics.' If you look in the Oxford, it says that, and then it says... 'Despite - and people will hold these propositions despite events.'

Debates are boring.

No one in the modern history of this country, no president, has done more to move toward a balanced budget than has President Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton has done more to help the middle class than any leader in decades.

In 1980, in 1984, millions of middle-class Democrats became Reagan Democrats, and more of them drifted toward the Republicans with Bush in 1988.

The truth is that beginning in the 1970s, the heart of our Democratic party, America's strong striving middle class, began drifting away from us.

9/11 occurs, and you're going to rebuild, and after awhile, the memory will be there, but there will be something new there, and different, and functioning, and electric.

I am one who believes that the world goes from the slime to the sublime. And you can take Darwin and all your philosophers and all your ontologists, and that's the direction.

Tax should be the same for everybody.

I had not even thought of running for president until one day in 1991, at a small fund-raiser, completely unanticipated, someone stood up and said, 'Hey, Mario, in all the years we've supported you, we've never heard you talk about the presidency, and we want to know why not.'

I had a chance to go on the Supreme Court of the United States, and my whole family was more disappointed in my deciding not to do that than in my deciding not to run for president - much more.

If I made a mistake in terms of running for president, the mistake was not in refusing to run in '91.

The Mafia is a question every time an Italian raises his head.

I did once answer the question 'What would you say on your tombstone?' I know what I would say: 'Mario Cuomo, 1932 - dash,' and, 'He tried.' That's it.

America was born in outrageous ambition, so bold as to be improbable. The deprived, the oppressed, the powerless from all over the globe came here with little more than the desire to realize themselves.

Decide exactly what you want to achieve. Do you want to help people, or do you want to be powerful?

There are only two rules for being successful: one, figure out exactly what you want to do, and two, do it.

I love bunt plays. I love the idea of the bunt. I love the idea of the sacrifice. Even the word is good. Giving yourself up for the good of the whole.

Sometimes comforting the afflicted does require afflicting the comfortable.

The American people need no course in philosophy or political science of church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman.

My favorite thought about Abraham Lincoln is he believed in two things: loving one another and working together to make this world better.

The beauty of America is that I don't have to deny my past to affirm my present. No one does. We can love this nation like a parent and still embrace our ancestral home like cherished grandparents.

I'm not better than other politicians, but I'm different because I got into the game much later in life, after I had raised a family, after I had written a book, after I had been a successful lawyer. It's different when you get into this business after you've led a full life. I don't want to be a big man. I know who I am.

A lot of my stories about the old days, they're delicious and funny. But every time I recall the early days, it's painful. With every anecdote, it's painful because you're summoning up the terribly, terribly difficult life of my parents. And it's painful because I didn't realize at the time how hard it was for them.

Lincoln had bad press, too. He wasn't appreciated until after he was gone.

The first good player I watched as a kid was Joe DiMaggio, and that was like ballet. Since then, I played sandlot and college ball and came to understand how difficult it can be.

David Robinson chose to stay at Navy. He talked about commitment, loyalty and values. I wonder how many of us would choose these virtues rather than the chance of becoming a millionaire, especially if you were a college sophomore when you had to make that choice.

We Democrats still have a dream. We still believe in this nation's future.

I will take a draft to the Yankees or to the Mets. A draft for president is not conceivable.

There is no basis to say I'm being coy about running for president. If I chose to explore the presidency, I wouldn't do it in a backward way. I'll say, 'I'm exploring the presidency.'

If I want to run for president, you'll be able to tell.

In 1982, I wrote in my diary that life is motion, not joy. If the way you measure success in life is by how much joy it brings you, you're measuring inaccurately. Life is also sadness, defeat, striving. It is many things.

I went to electric razors so I would not have to look at myself in the morning.

Barack Obama is probably one of the brightest in terms of sheer intelligence... also probably the best orator we've ever had as a president.

People like Pete Peterson, the former secretary of commerce and Blackstone and titan of Wall Street, etc., has been writing books for years about the debt and deficit.

You can't ever make serious progress against terrorism unless you deal with Israel.

You want calamities? What about the Ice Age?

I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in fifty years what my father taught me by example in one week.

There are few things more amusing in the world of politics than watching moderate Republicans charging to the right in pursuit of greater glory.

I am a trial lawyer. Matilda says that at dinner on a good day I sound like an affidavit.

We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things. And we'll do it not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that bring people to their senses.

The mugger who is arrested is back on the street before the police officer, but the person mugged may not be back on the street for a long time, if ever.

I said I didn't want to run for president. I didn't ask you to believe me.

Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right.

I concentrated on a lot of things, so very few people saw me as an education governor, an infrastructure governor.

Nobody has ever gotten a bigger push than Bill Clinton gave to Obama.

There's something about rhetorical violence that is ugly and worrying.

I have no quarrel with people seeing me as a sinner.

The problem is that you can't impose the church's teachings on all Americans as a matter of law.