John Kasich Quotes

I can't work any harder. I can't do any more. I am literally just blown away and humbled by the volunteers and how hard they're working. I think they've got a sense that they're going to be part of something bigger than themselves.

I was a member of the Armed Services Committee for 18 years. I spent a big chunk of my life studying national security issues and our role in the world.

The administration [of Barack Obama] is going to have to figure out, you know, a tough response on the basis of this [Russian] hacking.

America is a miracle country. And we have to restore the sense that the Amiracle (ph) will apply to you. Each and every one of the people in this country who's watching tonight, lift everybody, unite everybody and build a stronger United States of America again. It will be and can be done.

Economic growth is the key to everything. But once you have economic growth, it is important that we reach out to people who live in the shadows, the people who don't seem to ever think that they get a fair deal. And that includes people in our minority community; that includes people who feel as though they don't have a chance to move up.

No one ever expect me to get in the race. They didn't think I would get on the debate stage. I did. They didn't think I'd do well in New Hampshire. I finished second. And so we went to South Carolina. In a short period of time later, two weeks ago people in South Carolina had no clue who I was.

If I were president, I would want to spend a lot of time going to the legislatures and telling them about best practices, whether it's about fighting poverty, whether it's about educating kids. The states are the laboratories where we can see what works. And I think presidents can have a much better relationship with legislatures.

People are frustrated. They're fed up. They don't think the government is working for them.

Let's start off with my father being a mailman.

I'm an old-fashioned person and I happen to believe in traditional marriage.

Nobody wants anybody who's radical, who wants to move in here to be able to gain access. I said we should take a pause on these Syrian migrants. And I believe we should do that.

Leaders have to lead.

God is a compass. God is not about who you're sleeping with or, I mean, I don't care about that. It's about loving your neighbor. It's about living a life that's bigger than yourself. As time goes on, societies have a tendency to put themselves on the throne, and that leads to self-absorption and that leads to "life is all about me." And there's not a compass that sends you in a direction where life can't be just about you.

We've got to unite our country again, because we're stronger when we are united and we are weaker when we are divided.

Sometimes people just don't understand the way that I work in politics.

There is a growing sense in America that being disconnected is not good. And there's also some people that are staying in their silos and not coming out, but we have to pull them out, and we have to pull ourselves together at some point, I think.

I'm not sure I want to sound like a candidate. I just want to sound like an American who's trying to make this country a heck of a lot stronger. Not a politician typical, but somebody that's going to go and do the job, not pay attention to all the special interest groups, change the status quo, shift power out of Washington and get America on the track again with strengthening our military as well.

I'm not a plotter or a schemer. I'm a guy that looks at problems and tries to solve them, which I have done all of my career, creating jobs in Washington, creating jobs in Ohio.

You want your children to be safe. You want your families to be safe. We know that.

Let me tell you what would be a really, really great project for all of us. Why don't we start mentoring kids? Whether we're liberal or conservative, why don't we start going into the schools and giving the kids a sense of their own purpose, their own self-worth, their future, and what they can learn from us? You know, if we're mentoring kids together, we might actually begin to talk to one another again and listen to one another. We have a big crisis all over the country and in our state on drugs.

If you go into a room of 100-plus people, and you want to be the prince of darkness, you can be it. But I don't operate in the dark, I operate in the light.

I've been frankly very surprised at the intensity of our differences [with Russia]. I mean, between what appears to be hacking of our political system to the aggressive use of nukes on the borders, to these atrocities in Syria and their warnings. I've been very, very surprised at the intensity of all this.

I think that they are hung up on, you know, that people cheat and we don't enforce the laws, and I think that's correct. But I don't think people want to just say, "We're not going to trade with anybody."

You can't go home and look at your plaques at the end of the day, because every politician has like a million plaques on their wall. OK? You don't go home and look at - you don't get anything for that. And you can't go home and say, boy, I really served the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. You want to go home and, you know, Fourth of July, you know, any of these special holidays that recognize our country, you want to feel like you've built a stronger nation, which means you helped build the people and put them in a stronger place where everyone's lifted.

If the [Republican] party wants to have an ideological debate, it's never going to win anything in a major way.

I believe we can solve anything. I believe people working together can lift everybody.

I don't want to comment on media outlets, but I will tell you that if the Republican Party does not evolve, the Republican Party is going to die.

The best way to build anything is to build it together and build it with diversity, because then you really get good ideas about how to be strong. And you need a strong foundation, which brings about the notion that all of us in the neighborhoods, I still consider myself to be one of them.

With all those fledgling countries in Asia, who really want to stand with us but they live under the shadow of China and the smaller shadow of Russia. So I just think Trans-Pacific Partnership is really important both economically and geopolitically.

What people really want to know from their doctor is, are you going to make me feel better? And what they really want to know from a president are, are you going to give me some security when it comes to my work? Because if I'm not working, my family is in trouble. And when I am working, the fact of the matter is, my whole family is doing better.

We [americans] need to control our border just like people have to control who goes in and out of their house.

I don't want to get into an argument with somebody about how they ought to vote.

I served on the Armed Services Committee for 18 years and we must lead, or the job won't get done, unfortunately, for our country.

When you ask people, do they believe that we ought to have trade, I think people understand it's important.

You know, whatever it takes. It's very important obviously from an economic point of view because of the need for innovation, for progress, to improve the standard of living of people. But I also think it's a critical issue in geopolitics too.

We need to give everybody a chance, treat everybody with respect, and let them share in this great American dream that we have.

A great power has to have the discipline not only to go when necessary but to know when not to go. Getting involved in ethnic, religious civil wars is a recipe for disaster.

The Republican Party cannot be anti-trade, anti-immigrant, not out there practicing the politics of people, you know, the issues surrounding drug addiction and mental illness and the cost of prescription drugs and healthcare and student debt and all of these things are very personal to people now.

In faith, I'm a believer in the do's - you know, love your neighbor, love your enemy. I don't spend a lot of time thinking on the don'ts 'cause I can't get the do's right.

A friend asked one of my daughters, "Do you like politics?" And my daughter said, "No, I don't. And the reason I don't like it is because there's too much fighting, too much yelling. It's so loud, I don't like it." You know, I turned to my friend and I said, "You know, she's really on to something."

We've got to listen to other people's voices, respect them, but keep in mind, and I believe in terms of the things that I've read in my lifetime, the Lord is not picking us. But because of how we respect human rights, because that we are a good force in the world, he wants America to be strong.

A leader has a sound program, has a good policy, and then brings people together to solve problems.

I mean, it would be very easy to make an inflammatory statement on what we ought to do on cyber. I don't think that that's productive. But to allow the Russian activity to go unresponded to is not acceptable.

Nothing is more important to me than my family, my faith, and my friends.

To have people believe in you and to believe that you can bring people together and strengthen our country, I have to thank the people from the great state of Ohio. I love you. Is it all right? I love you. And I want to remind you, again, tonight, that I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land.

Furthermore, when there is cheating, the cheating needs to be called. And I see that the administration has become much more aggressive on that front [of retraining people who get displaced].

One of the things that I'm really concerned about is that people who don't have power are not priorities for people in public life. Maybe it's always been that way, but I see it more starkly now.

(God) wants America to succeed. And he wants America to lead.