Top 15 Ann Richards Quotes

After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.

I believe in recovery, and as a role model I have the responsibility to let young people know that you can make a mistake and come back from it.

The here and now is all we have, and if we play it right it's all we'll need.

I have a real soft spot in my heart for librarians and people who care about books.

Poor George [Bush], he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.

I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.

You can put lipstick and earrings on a hog and call it Monique, but it's still a pig.

They blame the low-income women for ruining the country because they're staying home with their children and not going out to work. They blame the middle-income women for ruining the country because they go out to work and do not stay home to take care of their children.

The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you're not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self-examination to say, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. They don't ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest, and show a modicum of good sense.

Oh, I would probably have raised more hell.

I have seen the very bottom of life: I was so afraid I wouldn’t be funny anymore. I just knew that I would lose my zaniness and my sense of humor. But I didn’t. Recovery turned out to be a wonderful thing.

The regular Democratic Party and its organization was run by men who looked on women as little more than machine parts.

But I'll tell you something sort of interesting. There's something, you know, there's something a little scary about funny women. Well, they're threatening. And there was a survey done one time where they asked women what they were most afraid of from men. And the -- their response was they were most afraid of being hit or beaten or hurt from men. And they asked men what they were most afraid of from women, and they said being laughed at.

Oh, absolutely. No question about it. And the state of Texas, when I was governor, we built an awful lot of prisons. And to be frank with you, I made a deal, and the deal was that I would help pass the legislation and be for building a lot more prisons in Texas if I could get rehab programs for people who were alcoholics and drug abusers because I knew that over 80 percent of the crime committed in Texas was committed by people under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

I am delighted to be here with you this evening, because after listening to George Bush all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like.