Nancy Reagan Quotes

A woman is like a teabag - only in hot water do you realize how strong she is.

I believe that more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.

If you did not like the show, honey, my name is Nancy Reagan and go fuck yourself.” Chablis

There's a big, wonderful world out there for you. It belongs to you. It's exciting and stimulating and rewarding. Don't cheat yourselves out of this promise.

I love you so very much I don't even mind that life made me wait so long to find you. The waiting only made the finding sweeter.

Inrealized how valuable the art and practice of writing letters are, and how important it is to remind people of what a treasure letters--handwritten letters--can be. In our throwaway era of quick phone calls, faxes, and email, it's all to easy never to find the time to write letters. That's a great pity--for historians and the rest of us.

When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I

God has a plan for each of us and that while we might not understand His plan now, eventually we will.

But Nancy is right—Presidents don’t have vacations—they just have a change of scenery”;

Sure, I had been through the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program when I was a kid. I had seen Nancy Reagan’s pasty white ass on TV telling me to, “just say no”. But Nancy Regan had never had to worry about paying the rent, or living pay check to pay check, or finding her dad’s rolling papers on the shelf above the coco-puffs. So I guess in Nancy Reagan’s world it was pretty damn easy to adopt retarded slogans like, “just say no”. I wouldn’t know, though. I lived in the real world. I had problems.

You learn something out of everything, and you come to realize more than ever that we're all here for a certain space of time, and, and then it's going to be over, and you better make this count.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss. Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together. For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, "Give me a challenge, and I'll meet it with joy." They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us. We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and, perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers. And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's take-off. I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them. I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program. And what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA, or who worked on this mission and tell them: "Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it." There's a coincidence today. On this day three hundred and ninety years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, "He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it." Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God." Thank you.

God has a plan and it isn’t for us to understand, only to know that He has his reasons and because He is all merciful and all loving we can depend on it that there is purpose in whatever He does and it is for our own good. What you must understand without any question or doubt is that I believe this and trust him and you must, too. What

This toast is for all of us,” he said. “Not for what we’re about to become, but for what we’ve been, to each other, for so many years.” In

Hillary wanted to have more influence than Nancy Reagan or Eleanor Roosevelt; she wanted a seat at the table, and her husband was eager to give it to her.

I thanked Nancy for what she had accomplished in her war against illegal drugs, but in my heart, I was really trying to say, “Thank you, Nancy, for everything; thank you for lighting up my life for almost forty years.

[Nancy Reagan] and [Ronald Reagan] would’ve hated what was happening under their roof. While they were in the White House, they did their very best to ensure that people like me simply died. Their inaction in the face of the 1980s AIDS epidemic was nothing short of genocidal. It’s fitting that she’ll spend posterity draped in red, the color of blood, a color that has become the symbol of the disease she and her husband let run wild.

This is among the most profound shifts in our legal history,” warns a Reagan-appointed federal judge. His words bear slow reading: “Ominously, business has a good chance of opting out of the legal system altogether and misbehaving without reproach.” A subsequent headline noted that it amounts to a “Privatization of the Justice System.”73

A woman is like a teabag. It's only when she's in hot water that you realize how strong she is.

Read this morning of a black family—husband and wife both work in govt. printing office. They live in a nice house near U. of Maryland. They have been harassed and even had a cross burned on their lawn. It was all on the front page of the “Post.” I told Mike & Jim I’d like to call on them. We cleared the last part of the afternoon schedule & Nancy & I went calling. They were a very nice couple with a 4 year old daughter—grandma (a most gracious lady) lived with them. Their home was very nice & tastefully furnished. They were very nice about our coming & expressed their thanks. The whole neighborhood was lining the street—most of them cheering and applauding us. I hope we did some good. There is no place in this land for the hate-mongers & bigots.

On June 5, 2004, President Reagan died. Right before his death, Nancy said, he turned to look directly at her, something that he had not done in more than a month. “Then he closed his eyes and went. And that was a wonderful gift.

It is well known that my husband and Lady Thatcher enjoyed a very special relationship as leaders of their respective countries during one of the most difficult and pivotal periods in modern history. Ronnie and Margaret were political soul mates, committed to freedom and resolved to end Communism".

It is the simplest phrase you can imagine,” Favreau said, “three monosyllabic words that people say to each other every day.” But the speech etched itself in rhetorical lore. It inspired music videos and memes and the full range of reactions that any blockbuster receives online today, from praise to out-of-context humor to arch mockery. Obama’s “Yes, we can” refrain is an example of a rhetorical device known as epistrophe, or the repetition of words at the end of a sentence. It’s one of many famous rhetorical types, most with Greek names, based on some form of repetition. There is anaphora, which is repetition at the beginning of a sentence (Winston Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields”). There is tricolon, which is repetition in short triplicate (Abraham Lincoln: “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people”). There is epizeuxis, which is the same word repeated over and over (Nancy Pelosi: “Just remember these four words for what this legislation means: jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs”). There is diacope, which is the repetition of a word or phrase with a brief interruption (Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”) or, most simply, an A-B-A structure (Sarah Palin: “Drill baby drill!”). There is antithesis, which is repetition of clause structures to juxtapose contrasting ideas (Charles Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”). There is parallelism, which is repetition of sentence structure (the paragraph you just read). Finally, there is the king of all modern speech-making tricks, antimetabole, which is rhetorical inversion: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” There are several reasons why antimetabole is so popular. First, it’s just complex enough to disguise the fact that it’s formulaic. Second, it’s useful for highlighting an argument by drawing a clear contrast. Third, it’s quite poppy, in the Swedish songwriting sense, building a hook around two elements—A and B—and inverting them to give listeners immediate gratification and meaning. The classic structure of antimetabole is AB;BA, which is easy to remember since it spells out the name of a certain Swedish band.18 Famous ABBA examples in politics include: “Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.” —Benjamin Disraeli “East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other.” —Ronald Reagan “The world faces a very different Russia than it did in 1991. Like all countries, Russia also faces a very different world.” —Bill Clinton “Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.” —George W. Bush “Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights.” —Hillary Clinton In particular, President John F. Kennedy made ABBA famous (and ABBA made John F. Kennedy famous). “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind,” he said, and “Each increase of tension has produced an increase of arms; each increase of arms has produced an increase of tension,” and most famously, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Antimetabole is like the C–G–Am–F chord progression in Western pop music: When you learn it somewhere, you hear it everywhere.19 Difficult and even controversial ideas are transformed, through ABBA, into something like musical hooks.

On the TV screen in Harry's is The Patty Winters Show, which is now on in the afternoon and is up against Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. Today's topic is Does Economic Success Equal Happiness? The answer, in Harry's this afternoon, is a roar of resounding "Definitely," followed by much hooting, the guys all cheering together in a friendly way. On the screen now are scenes from President Bush's inauguration early this year, then a speech from former President Reagan, while Patty delivers a hard-to-hear commentary. Soon a tiresome debate forms over whether he's lying or not, even though we don't, can't, hear the words. The first and really only one to complain is Price, who, though I think he's bothered by something else, uses this opportunity to vent his frustration, looks inappropriately stunned, asks, "How can he lie like that? How can he pull that shit?" "Oh Christ," I moan. "What shit? Now where do we have reservations at? I mean I'm not really hungry but I would like to have reservations somewhere. How about 220?" An afterthought: "McDermott, how did that rate in the new Zagat's?" "No way," Farrell complains before Craig can answer. "The coke I scored there last time was cut with so much laxative I actually had to take a shit in M.K." "Yeah, yeah, life sucks and then you die." "Low point of the night," Farrell mutters. "Weren't you with Kyria the last time you were there?" Goodrich asks. "Wasn't that the low point?" "She caught me on call waiting. What could I do?" Farrell shrugs. "I apologize." "Caught him on call waiting." McDermott nudges me, dubious. "Shut up, McDermott," Farrell says, snapping Craig's suspenders. "Date a beggar." "You forgot something, Farrell," Preston mentions. "McDermott is a beggar." "How's Courtney?" Farrell asks Craig, leering. "Just say no." Someone laughs. Price looks away from the television screen, then at Craig, and he tries to hide his displeasure by asking me, waving at the TV, "I don't believe it. He looks so... normal. He seems so... out of it. So... un dangerous." "Bimbo, bimbo," someone says. "Bypass, bypass." "He is totally harmless, you geek. Was totally harmless. Just like you are totally harmless. But he did do all that shit and you have failed to get us into 150, so, you know, what can I say?" McDermott shrugs. "I just don't get how someone, anyone, can appear that way yet be involved in such total shit," Price says, ignoring Craig, averting his eyes from Farrell. He takes out a cigar and studies it sadly. To me it still looks like there's a smudge on Price's forehead. "Because Nancy was right behind him?" Farrell guesses, looking up from the Quotrek. "Because Nancy did it?" "How can you be so fucking, I don't know, cool about it?" Price, to whom something really eerie has obviously happened, sounds genuinely perplexed. Rumor has it that he was in rehab.

let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your President. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead. Thank

Royalty has traditionally been vulnerable to psychic frauds. In ancient China and Rome astrology was the exclusive property of the emperor; any private use of this potent art was considered a capital offense. Emerging from a particularly credulous Southern California culture, Nancy and Ronald Reagan relied on an astrologer in private and public matters—unknown to the voting public. Some portion of the decision-making that influences the future of our civilization is plainly in the hands of charlatans. If anything, the practice is comparatively muted in America; its venue is worldwide.

Getting shot hurts. Still my fear was growing because no matter how hard I tried to breathe it seemed I was getting less & less air. I focused on that tiled ceiling and prayed. But I realized I couldn’t ask for Gods help while at the same time I felt hatred for the mixed up young man who had shot me. Isn’t that the meaning of the lost sheep? We are all Gods children & therefore equally beloved by him. I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back to the fold. I opened my eyes once to find Nancy there. I pray I’ll never face a day when she isn’t there. Of all the ways God has blessed me giving her to me is the greatest and beyond anything I can ever hope to deserve.

Newt Gingrich, Reagan reflected, had never in his life fit properly into a suit. He still looked like the fat, despised, teacher’s-pet, suck-up junior debating whiz who was going to fall apart in his senior year, except he was now fifty years past it. Back when I was alive, he had that same querulous expression of a guy who didn’t understand two big things:
 1. being smart doesn’t make you popular, and 2. even if it did, he isn’t smart enough for it to work for him. He remembered trying to explain it to Nancy, who had told him that, “Ronnie, granted that Newt is sometimes irritating, you have to admit he’s brighter than most Congressmen—” “So is every horse out at Rancho del Cielo, Mommy, and half the rocks for that matter,” he’d said.

-Polaca, ¿de dónde eres, que no te encuentro el acento por ningún lugar? -Parce, pana, pata, che boludo, and I can speak English as well as Nancy Reagan. Soy del mundo entero, querido. Igual que mi culo. Ni mi culo ni yo tenemos bandera.

Sweat began to pour off me and the contents of my stomach–soft serve ice cream, peach schnapps, and a handful of wax potpourri I’d earlier mistaken for Gummi bears–roiled in an unholy stew. The smell of poached eggs was overwhelming. Without benefit of loafers or coat, I ran outside to vomit in a snowbank. All I could think the entire time was, “Nancy Reagan was right.” After that, I just said no to smoking pot, and, for quite a while, poaching eggs.

Pero en efecto recuerdo que donó su salario para una fundación. TP: El problema es que nadie le dijo que no podía tener legalmente dos salarios y mucho menos que podía donar parte de su salario porque tenía dos familias, dos casas que mantener con cuatro hijos. A partir de allí ya supe que nunca irían a restituir la transparencia perdida en los gobiernos de Leoni y Caldera I. Todos dan por asumido que la Casa de Gobierno debe pagarle todo a los presidentes cuando no es cierto, el presidente es un funcionario público que debe pagar por el mantenimiento de su familia y sus gastos como jefe de hogar y la Primera Dama debe trabajar para costearse sus gastos o ayudar a los gastos de la familia. CE: Eso es muy difícil de entender en Latinoamérica. Pocos saben que el presidente Obama tenía que pagarse las comidas, el jabón y la pasta de dientes como cualquier trabajador estadounidense. Por supuesto que no va al auto mercado a comprarlo, pero eso se le deduce del salario. TP: Y también la primera dama. Para actos oficiales por ejemplo Michelle Obama podía aceptar ropa de diseñadores que les interesaba proyectarse y eran aceptados como donaciones en nombre del gobierno, es decir no se los podía quedar después, tenían que ir al Archivo Nacional. CE: Laura Bush en su biografía explicaba que le impresionó lo meticulosa que era la factura mensual de la Casa Blanca por sus gastos de peluquería y cuanto tenía que pagar de su bolsillo por el servicio de limpieza y camareros en sus reuniones particulares. TP: A Nancy Reagan le criticaron mucho que usaba vestidos que tenían diez años y luego que pidiera prestados vestidos y así se queja en su biografía, mientras que Hillary Clinton causó problemas por haberle pedido a un empresario chino que ayudara a cancelar sus deudas por haber gastado ochenta mil dólares en fiestas de navidad[1] y ese dinero se lo debía a la Casa Blanca, de hecho, Bill Clinton salió endeudado de su presidencia. CE: Eso es lo que había en los primeros tres gobiernos de la era democrática que después se distorsionó, recuerdo que hicimos una entrevista a la familia de Leoni, que no pudo hacerle una fiesta de quince años a su hija como ellos querían porque no le alcanzaba su sueldo, pues su sueldo de presidente tenía que vivir. TP: Lógicamente la ropa del presidente, sus gastos de representación y las comidas para actos públicos, salen del bolsillo de los contribuyentes como ocurre en muchos lugares incluso de Latinoamérica, y se puede discutir mucho sobre los límites y alcances, pero Chávez llegó a donar un salario que no podía donar legalmente, cuando tenía dos familias que mantener.

The first glimpse of Neverland was like arriving at a mini-Disneyland. The first guests I saw were Nancy Reagan chatting with Merv Griffin.

Who wasn’t a drug dealer?” she replied with a laugh. “I think we were all drug dealers back then.” The answer satisfied me. Who was I—Nancy Reagan? The War on Drugs was a war on the poor, on people of color, on anyone who didn’t fit in with the moral majority; the War on Drugs was a war on us.

Reagan suggested ending the nightclub act by reciting a poem

He is himself again, more himself than at any time on this Earth." Nancy Reagan on her husband

In fact, Reagan couldn’t remember his grandchildren’s names, and he had no friends, only the husbands of Nancy’s friends.

frustrated agents at MCA had almost

The vibrations of an addict are of a very specific sort—they ricochet, out of control, mostly out of reach. The energy called up by the drug quickly disperses, leaving a void, a nothingness. Nature abhors a vacuum, so negative forces rush in, take up residence. The only immediate relief is more narcotics. It must be horrific. “Come in, come in. I’m Senator Jonathan Huffman. You’re welcome here,” said a man in his late sixties, with a booming, commanding voice. He was hale and hearty, a ruddy glow under an expensive haircut. Dressed in a navy blue jacket over khaki pants, he wore an honest-to-gosh ascot at his throat. He exuded wealth and privilege, innate confidence. And an overanxious need to be liked. He had one arm wrapped around a woman similar in age, who was fragile and birdlike, almost lost in her Nancy Reagan–style bright red ensemble. She nodded at us and smiled. “You’re friends of Oliver’s, I presume?” asked the senator. “Oh, hey, Gregory,” said Oliver with a

I don't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs. -Nancy Reagan, speaking at an anti-drug rally

Lady Diana melted my heartstrings in her dirty white dress. She even helped an old man up the aisle. I thought it was very kind of her considering it was her wedding day. Loads of dead famous people were there. Nancy Reagan, Spike Milligan, Mark Phillips, etc., etc. The Queen looked a bit jealous. I expect it was because people weren’t looking at her for a change.

Then, they all told me that I was a lucky girl. Yep, as lucky as Nancy Reagan getting lost in Watts on New Year’s Eve.

Scratch the surface and what do you get?" asked Way Bandy, the two-thousand-dollars-a-day make up artist who "designed" Nancy's face. "More surface.

Before entering politics, Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild six times between 1947 and 1960. Holden was vice president of the Guild during Reagan’s third term in 1949, when mainland China fell to Communism, and growing tensions led to the Korean War. The two men formed a close bond. On March 4, 1952, Holden was best man and Ardis Ankerson was matron of honor at the wedding of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis at Little Brown Church in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles.

Beth thought for a moment of the world that had been, of the flurries of callout posts, the texts asking her why she’d hung out with so-and-so when she didn’t she know they were problematic, that they’d broken boundaries or gaslit someone or said the word “sex” where a kid might have overheard. There had been pain in there, too. Real pain swirling through a farrago of social justice buzzwords and ruthless self-professed socialists whose politics hewed closer to Nancy Reagan than to Marx or Engels.

No president has yet admitted to receiving specialized mental health care. When a reporter asked Nancy Reagan about psychiatry, she said 'getting psychiatric treatment means that you are not really trying to get hold of yourself. It's sloughing off your own responsibilities.' And when Bill Clinton and other American political leaders have reached out for emotional support, they turned only to Christian ministers.

But belief in the Victorian, Enlightenment-based ideal of an omnipotent, autonomous willpower, overseeing and in control of a mind transparent to itself, has generally faded. It reappears from time in slogans, political (as in Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No”) and commercial (as in Nike’s “Just do it!”). But the “just” in these slogans is a form of magical denial that the powerful physiological and psychological grip of drug addiction and deficits in athletic constitution and training can all be overcome by simple exertion of the will. The other end of the continuum, the opposite of the traditional belief in the omnipotent will, is the doctrine of passive victimization, in evidence in television spectacles in which perpetrators of heinous crimes exonerate themselves by revealing their own past victimization. Not only are we not in control, they seem to be saying, we are pawns of what was done to us in our distant personal pasts. Psychotherapy is often misused in the service of this sort of self-exoneration.

He told of visiting Nancy in the recovery room. “She was asleep when Dick and I got there. Suddenly, as we were standing by her bed, there was a little movement of her body. Her eyes didn’t open, but I heard a tiny voice say, ‘My breast is gone.’ Barely conscious because of her anesthesia, Nancy somehow had sensed we were there. She was devastated by the loss of her breast—not because she was worried about herself, but because she was worried about me and how I would feel about her as a woman. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I love you.’ Then I leaned over and kissed her softly, and repeated that it made no difference to me. But seeing that sadness in her eyes, it was all I could do to avoid breaking up again.

Bill Clinton was lucky in many ways; but when it came to former presidents, he won the lottery. When he was elected president, he had five former commanders in chief at his disposal: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush, the most of any president in the twentieth century. Not all of them had been helpful to one another, in or out of office. But some combination of his charm, their needs, and the new global challenges of the post–Cold War age allowed Clinton to deploy nearly all to his advantage—especially, as it turned out, the Republicans.