Barbara Bush Quotes

Your success as a family... our success as a nation... depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.

At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent.

Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people - your family, friends, and coworkers, and even strangers you meet along the way.

Future of his nation does not depend on what happens at the White House, but what happens at your house

I think togetherness is a very important ingredient to family life.

I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children, they just about throw up.

Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family.

The home is the child's first school, the parent is the child's first teacher, and reading is the child's first subject.

I'm a liberal when it comes to human rights, the poor; so's George Bush. . . . But Liberal and Conservative don't mean much to me anymore. Does that mean we care about people and are interested and want to help? And if that makes you a Liberal, so be it.

To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.

The Titanic was built by professionals. The Ark was built by volunteers.

If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities.

And who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President's spouse. I wish him well!

Well, look at what people are doing for returned veterans now. The wounded warriors. They're working hard to make the wounded veterans feel that they are loved and welcomed home, unlike Vietnam. It was not a very kind, gentle world then. I think we are kinder and gentler.

You have to love your children unselfishly. That's hard. But it's the only way.

Nancy Reagan was a perfectionist, and I am not.

But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

Libraries have always seemed like the richest places in the world to me, and I?ve done some of my best learning and thinking thanks to them. Libraries and librarians have definitely changed my life ? and the lives of countless other Americans.

The darn trouble with cleaning the house is it gets dirty the next day anyway, so skip a week if you have to. The children are the most important thing.

Bias has to be taught. If you hear your parents downgrading women or people of different backgrounds, why, you are going to do that.

. . . learning never ends, and as we enter the next century, it will be more and more important for all Americans to be lifelong learners. . . . every one of us can contribute in some way to a better-educated America.

Why be afraid of what people will say? Those who care about you will say, Good luck! and those who care only about themselves will never say anything worth listening to anyway.

I love talking to people, but what I really love is to feel you're doing something instead of sitting home and twiddling your thumbs.

Some people give time, some money, some their skills and connections, some literally give their life's blood . . . but everyone has something to give.

Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others.

Nobody likes a child to die or losing an election.

I think a lot of our problems are because people don't listen to our children. It is not always easy. They're not always so brilliant that you want to spend hours with them. But it is very important to listen to them.

I don't think that's healthy for the country when anyone thinks their morals are better than anyone else's.

I think the country has had enough Bushes.

If more people could read, write, and comprehend, we could be much closer to solving so many of the other problems our country faces today.

You may think the president is all-powerful, but he is not. He needs a lot of guidance from the Lord.

Where will our country find leaders with integrity, courage, strength-all the family values-in ten, twenty, or thirty years? The answer is that you are teaching them, loving them, and raising them right now.

Raising five boys is a handful, trust me.

I hate abortions, but just could not make that choice for someone else.

Believe in something larger than yourself ... to get involved in some of the big ideas of our time.

One thing I can say about George... he may not be able to keep a job, but he's not boring.

Three publishers came to me at the White House after George lost and said, 'We would like to publish your book.' I said, 'Well, I don't have a book,' and they said well it's a well known fact that you have kept diaries.

Whatever the era...one thing will never change: Fathers and mothers, if you have children, they must come first.

People who worry about their hair all the time, frankly, are boring.

Whether you are talking about education, career, or service, you are talking about life. And life must really have joy. It's supposed to be fun.

Family and friends and faith are the most important things in your life and you should be building friendships.

It was the dumbest thing I had ever seen, but it's a family thing, and I guess it's clean.

I'm not saying to be happy you must be married. Nor am I saying that to be happy you need children. I'm saying that if you opt for children - be you man or woman - you have to take care of them.

Show me a wife who doesn't offer advice and I'll show you one who doesn't care very much.

You get nothing done if you don't listen to each other.

I hate the fact that people think compromise is a dirty word.

I'm worried about parents who aren't parenting.

You know sit with your arm around a little kid and read. It not only teaches them to read but it keeps the family strong.

I'm not a competitive person, and I think women like me because they don't think I'm competitive, just nice.

I mean you can learn how to build a bullet or build a gun or build a bomb on the Internet.