Ideas matter a lot, the underlying ideas that stand behind policies. When you don't have ideas, your policies are flip-flopping all over the place. When you do have ideas, you have more consistency. And when you have the right ideas - then you can get somewhere (reagan had the right ideas).

Nothing ever gets settled in this town (Washington). It's not like running a company or even a university. It's a seething debating society, in which the debate never stops; in which people never give up, including me, and that's the atmosphere in which you administer.

The higher the classification of secrecy, the quicker you will report it.

Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.

If somebody had made that [deal] to me when I was a businessman, I would have said he proposed to give me the sleeves from his vest.

Before you get mugged by reality, take out an insurance policy. It's the Reagan way.

You don't get gushers of revenue by raising tax rates. You get it through expansion.