Barbara Bush Quotes

My worst expectations never happened.

My son, George, has been a bad, bad boy! Right, George?

You know sit with your arm around a little kid and read. It not only teaches them to read but it keeps the family strong.

I'm a great believer that the most important years are the sort of early years but the preschool years and then into the first and second grades. If you get a good base in the first and second grade and you can read, you can do anything.

Show me a wife who doesn't offer advice and I'll show you one who doesn't care very much.

It was the dumbest thing I had ever seen, but it's a family thing, and I guess it's clean.

I'm not being outspoken or pro or con abortion.

I think a lot of our problems are because people don't listen to our children. It is not always easy. They're not always so brilliant that you want to spend hours with them. But it is very important to listen to them.

But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

I'm not a competitive person, and I think women like me because they don't think I'm competitive, just nice.

To this day George Sr. is the soft touch and I'm the enforcer. I'm the one who writes them a letter and says 'Shape up!' He writes, 'You're marvelous.'

. . . learning never ends, and as we enter the next century, it will be more and more important for all Americans to be lifelong learners. . . . every one of us can contribute in some way to a better-educated America.

You get nothing done if you don't listen to each other.

Everything I worry about would be better if more people could read, write and comprehend.

People who worry about their hair all the time, frankly, are boring.

I'm not saying to be happy you must be married. Nor am I saying that to be happy you need children. I'm saying that if you opt for children - be you man or woman - you have to take care of them.

Future of his nation does not depend on what happens at the White House, but what happens at your house

If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities.

I'm tired now of the elections.

I mean you can learn how to build a bullet or build a gun or build a bomb on the Internet.

You may think the president is all-powerful, but he is not. He needs a lot of guidance from the Lord.

Family and friends and faith are the most important things in your life and you should be building friendships.

I love talking to people, but what I really love is to feel you're doing something instead of sitting home and twiddling your thumbs.

And who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President's spouse. I wish him well!

Where will our country find leaders with integrity, courage, strength-all the family values-in ten, twenty, or thirty years? The answer is that you are teaching them, loving them, and raising them right now.

The winner of the hoop race will be the first to realize her dream, not society's dream, her own personal dream.

I mean Afghanistan is a very rugged, complicated country.

Some people give time, some money, some their skills and connections, some literally give their life's blood . . . but everyone has something to give.

It seems to me I spent my life in car pools, but you know, that's how I kept track of what was going on.

The First Lady is going to be criticized no matter what she does.

To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.

I do have the most marvelous husband, children, and grandchildren.

There are a lot of ways to serve, and being president is not the only one, and I would hope that someone else would run.

Bias has to be taught. If you hear your parents downgrading women or people of different backgrounds, why, you are going to do that.

Describing life out of the public eye to David Letterman, December 6th, 1996 It's been different. I started driving again. I started cooking again. My driving's better than my cooking. George has discovered Sam's Club.

Your success as a family... our success as a nation... depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.

I don't like attacking.

You try to do something every single day that will help an American or maybe someone overseas.

I'm worried about parents who aren't parenting.

I'm a little old-fashioned.

Raising five boys is a handful, trust me.

I'm a liberal when it comes to human rights, the poor; so's George Bush. . . . But Liberal and Conservative don't mean much to me anymore. Does that mean we care about people and are interested and want to help? And if that makes you a Liberal, so be it.

Nancy Reagan was a perfectionist, and I am not.

I decided I ought to pick a project that would not be controversial, that would not really cost the government a lot of money.

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.

I'm not going to jump out of airplanes or anything like someone else I know.

If you are the wife of a governor or the wife of a vice president, I think you can be prepared for it.

One thing I can say about George... he may not be able to keep a job, but he's not boring.