Deval Patrick Quotes (19 Quotes)

I certainly understand the instinct to favor someone with whom you make a personal connection. But I also understand, and everyone else does, the import of also doing the fundamentals in terms of a background check.

Discontent with Republican is not going to be enough for us to win. We have got to offer more than to replace bad leadership with ordinary leadership. We have to offer creative leadership and vision.

I file jointly with my wife, so making our tax returns public means making a non-candidate's tax returns public. I'm not going to do that.

Gun violence is on the rise in many of our cities today, and illegal gun trafficking from neighboring states is a big part of the problem. We need a coordinated effort to ensure partnership and cooperation with prosecution, community programs and crime prevention. We need leadership from the federal, state and local levels, as well as help from our neighboring states.

I frequently feel when I listen to him and to many other elected officials that they are speaking to an audience not in the room.

In a healthy democracy, the voters choose representatives. In the system we have, the representatives choose the voters. That's upside down. This proposal puts us right side up again.

Without signing, what we get is what we have now, which is illegal and undocumented workers driving without training, without accountability. People do what they have to do to survive.

We need a government that is what we are at our best. Smart, efficient, pragmatic and compassionate.

We have drained common sense out of our politics. The more we focus on tactics and games, the more good people check out and give up.

He has watched jobs and people leave. Mostly young, well educated people -- our future. But discontent with the Republicans isn't going to be enough. We have to offer to the people leadership with creative leadership.

If you are ever going to move beyond where you stand at that moment you have to conjure a picture in your head of where you want to go.

We are not united around a common religion or even a common language, but around a handful of civic values. At the end of the day, that is what makes us a unique experiment in human history.

We'll be competitive with organized labor, we're also competitive with regular, unorganized labor, working people who see their stakes and their future in the plans we're putting forward to move Massachusetts forward.

I do identify with St. Patrick, not just in name. He drove the snakes out of Ireland. I intend to drive the snakes out of the State House.

If the question is, is there some conflict of interest between where or what my sources are and where my sources are and the job of governing, you'll know that from my financial disclosure forms, and that's entirely appropriate.

For too long, Democrats have been telling people what they want to hear. I'm going to tell you what I believe.

We had an unexpectedly large tax liability. We paid what we could and then we worked out an installment plan with the IRS. We missed one payment and we got a lien as a result.

Massachusetts invested in me 36 years ago. I lived in Chicago in a two bedroom tenement. I came to Massachusetts when I was 14. I had a scholarship to Milton Academy which to me was the other side of the world.

The notion that there would be two individuals with exactly the same seniority and exactly the same qualifications who would agree that they are equally qualified seems too unlikely to repeat itself in the real world.