Top 147 Quotes & Sayings by James Carville
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American lawyer James Carville.
Last updated on November 22, 2024.
The only thing I'm running for is the state line.
Over the course of history, governments, political regimes, and leaders have done some stupid things despite all arguments to the contrary, at times even against their own self-interest.
My mother, Ms. Nippy Carville, was a woman of many talents.
The teachings of the Church line up more with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party.
Some of these people think the universe is five thousand years old, and they say it with a straight face. If somebody had an explanation saying why they thought the earth was five thousand years old, there's only two possible explanations: you're really stupid, or you're really cynical and trying to get really stupid people's votes.
Drag a $100 bill through a trailer camp and there's no telling what you will find.
I believe that loyalty is a cardinal virtue. Nowhere in the world is loyalty so little revered and tittle-tattle so greatly venerated as in Washington.
I love to walk into places and have what I think is, like, the prettiest, smartest wife in town. I kind of enjoy that.
When you run for president, and become president, they just rip you apart. Every facade of privacy that you have is gone. I think everybody believes that, to some extent, you can maintain privacy. And I think in the end, everybody gets proven wrong.
In 1992, the most treasured voter was a voter that would sort of swing back and forth, one that might vote for Republican for president, Democrat for governor. The voter that didn't have that strong of a partisan ID. These were the voters that we targeted.
If you didn't have some sense of idealism, then what is there to sustain you?
When I was a little bitty boy, I was a fan of boxing. But in Louisiana, it's football, football, football, and then everything else.
Most of the stuff I've ever said is pretty insignificant and, by and large, has been said off the cuff and without much thought to the potential consequences.
There are many Republicans who hardly even know a Democrat. And there are just as many, if not more, Democrats who don't know a Republican.
Bill Clinton is a person who causes a lot of passion both ways about people, and there's certainly a lot of turmoil if you look back at the eight years. But there was a lot of good, too.
When you dehumanize a group, there's lasting consequences because they know that they're being dehumanized.
I've worked on enough campaigns to know that the most aggrieved candidate rarely emerges victorious.
I had a remarkably happy childhood; whatever scars I have are self-inflicted.
I love young people. I identify with them. It never was a goal of mine to grow up.
Like a lot of people, I pray for a sick relative or that kind of thing, but I don't pray to make my next flight connection at the airport. I find prayers before sports contests to be insensitive and kind of demeaning, at least when someone prays to beat the other team or something like that.
I've had enough of the blowhards on cable TV and the self-righteous anger I hear from people whose only accomplishment in life is their ability to turn the dial on an AM radio.
I grew up in Carville, Louisiana.
Politics is a rough and tumble business, and yet there seems to be an effort by the commentariat to sanitise American politics to some type of high-level Victorian debating society.
When you become famous, being famous becomes your profession.
Ideologies aren't all that important. What's important is psychology.
I was against gay marriage until I realized I didn't have to get one.
I think Ralph Nader is the biggest liar in American politics when he said it didn't matter who was president.
When I was growing up, I always had the dream of being an analyst for a minor league baseball team or something like that.
I think that America will not trust a party to defend America that isn't willing to defend itself.
I have people ask me if I'm going to convince my daughters to be Democrats, and I say, 'I have yet to convince my daughters to close a door.' I don't how in the world I would ever convince them to be in a political affiliation.
You have to have sharp elbows if you want to change something.
But I'd rather not predict. I'd rather affect.
I was a little-known political consultant until Bill Clinton made me. When he came upon hard times, I felt it my duty - whatever my personal misgivings - to stick by him.
Punditry is like weather forecasting: the winds can shift without warning. I remember when nobody would bet a McDonald's Quarter Pounder that Bill Clinton would win the White House.
I made the argument that every growing demographic in this country - nonwhite voters, younger people - is trending Democratic. It's a ticking time bomb for the GOP. That's why I felt safe in saying that 'Republicans have no hope of making serious inroads into Democratic advantages in 2010 or likely 2012 or 2014 and so on.'
I knew that manual labor wasn't the career for me.
No one will ever accuse James Carville of taking himself seriously.
If you want to be angry at Gore, be angry at him for not fighting harder in Florida.
I grew up in a French-dominated Catholic part of the country. I was an altar boy. I went to Catholic school. I have a cousin who is a priest - it's part of my DNA. It's kind of hard to separate me from the church, to try to say where one starts and the other stops.
Every day Catholics prove that you can be a good Catholic and a good Democrat and have a different position from the Church on abortion.
Democrats cluster in cities, and Republicans don't.
I always wanted to be a sports broadcaster.
My high school job was putting insulation in attics - in Louisiana in the summer. It must have been 95 degrees every day, and the insulation used to get all over me. It was not fun. But I didn't know any different. It wasn't like I was spending summers on Cape Cod.
Politics is a messy business, but campaigning prepares you for governing. It prepares you to get hit, stand strong, and, if necessary, hit back.
The only person that ever stumbles is a guy moving forward. You don't stumble backwards; you stumble forward, and you never stumble when you're stationary. So don't worry about stumbling. Keep pushing it forward.
When I was wrong about the 2002 elections, I dumped a garbage can on my head. When my John Kerry prediction didn't pan out in 2004, I smashed an egg on my face.
My favorite Saturday, outside any Saturday that Louisiana State University plays football, is the Kentucky Derby.
I know a bit about selling books, and you need a good title - a catchy concoction with a little Cajun spice, something that will make folks stop in the aisles, turn away from the Grisham novels and the latest crazy diet fad, and pick up your masterpiece.
I actually thought Pope Paul VI was the most tragic figure in the modern church, like Lyndon Johnson was a very tragic figure in politics in some ways.
We should not run away from religious teachings. We should run to them.
I always find it offensive when people say God showers riches on you if you're good.
You know there's nothing a Hill Democrat would rather do than criticize another Democrat. It is their favorite activity. Then they can read about how honorable they are in an Op-Ed piece, how bipartisan.
As Mike Tyson says, everybody has a plan until they get hit in the mouth. The one thing we know about American presidential politics is you're going to get hit in the mouth.
I think the Democratic Party has the chronic problem of appearing to be weak, of not standing and fighting for what it believes in, not fighting for its own.
Some comments are within bounds, while some are not. But by whining about every little barb, candidates are trying to win the election through a war of staff resignation attrition, and Americans are losing the ability to distinguish between what is fair game and what is not.
Sometimes the right thing gets done for the wrong reason and sometimes, unfortunately, the wrong thing gets done for the right reason.
One of my favorite aspects of basketball is good passing.
It's better to be married to someone who hates your politics than someone who hates your momma.
My dad was actually a college boxer at L.S.U. and a good one, too. He was the captain of the boxing team.
When George W. Bush was president, his daddy was raising money for the Bush library. I thought that was fine. When Bob Dole was Majority Leader, Elizabeth Dole was the president of American Red Cross. I didn't say anything.
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