The best social reform program in the world is a job.

I, in my own mind, have always thought of America as a place in the divine scheme of things that was set aside as a promised land...Any person with the courage, with the desire to tear up their roots, to strive for freedom, to attempt and dare to live in a strange and foreign place, to travel halfway across the world was welcome here.

Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.

This is a matter of vital importance to the public safety ... While we recognize that assault-weapon legislation will not stop all assault-weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals.

When people tell me that I became President on January 20th, 1981, I feel I have to correct them. You don't become President of the United States. You are given temporary custody of an institution called the Presidency, which belongs to our people.

Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few, but the universal right of all God's children.

Whether meeting with leaders and parents concerned about drugs in Bonn, Lisbon, or with the Holy Father at the Vatican, or doing a pretty fair flamenco in Madrid, I think Nancy's one of the best ambassadors America's ever had.