Laura Bush Quotes

If you’re going to be in national politics you have to maintain a thick skin.

I can't see why anyone would want to be in politics because you get so much criticism.

It’s always open season on the personal lives of presidents or presidential candidates.

The Clintons believe they're under more scrutiny than anybody's ever been, but because of the way they do things they invite that scrutiny.

Look, when you're the president, there's all kinds of things said about us. I mean, it's just the nature of the job.

I would dare say that most anyone in public life, if they stay in public long enough, is not treated fairly.

First Ladies have been through a lot by the time their husbands get to the Presidency.

Very few people go into politics to be reviled.

First lady has been a thankless position. Eleanor Roosevelt was brilliant and had strong views. She was criticized for her politics and for her appearance. Mrs. Roosevelt was attacked for being too involved in politics. Bess Truman was criticized for being uninvolved in politics.

The danger with running for president is sooner or later some sound bite is going hit.

Modern candidates seem to have to live with political matters all the time. In my father's time, a politician's home was still his castle.

Anyone who lives in Washington and has an official position viscerally understands the cost of a lack of privacy. Every dinner - especially ones with a journalist in attendance - is preceded by the mandatory, 'This is off the record.' But everyone also knows, nothing is really 'off the record.'

As mayor, I got used to the fact that when you walked out of the house in the morning to pick up the newspaper in your boxers, there could be a camera there.

Most people wouldn't want to marry a politician.

Why are people so sensitive about the reputation of General [George] McClellan? There is always something rotten about a sensitive reputation. Besides, is not General McClellan an American citizen? And is it not the first attribute and distinction of an American to be abused and slandered as long as he is heard of?

The curiosity of the public took the greatest toll on me of anything in politics

Being under the political spotlight is far different than anything I'd experienced before. Every word is a critical word. Sometimes you really aren't allowed to get your full thought out. A lot of it is about having a 30-second sound bite.

All of these attacks on Secretary Clinton, at the end of the day, are character attacks.

When you get into this line of work, you're in public office, you expect you're gonna have cheap shots taken at you. That's part of the process.

I don't know why someone would be dumb enough to challenge Donald Trump.

Because of who my husband is, and our life, and also he is number one in the polls - well, you take that all together, and people are very curious about me. I'm choosing not to go political in public because that is my husband's job. I'm very political in private life, and between me and my husband, I know everything that is going on.

When I was playing good, nobody was saying I was playing good. When I was playing bad, I would be the first one on the front of the journal.

I wince at some of the things I did as the young wife of Canada's fifteenth prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

I've always had the media going against me every year.

Ever since I took the plunge into active politics, I faced a fair amount of attacks and criticism from political rivals, and I had learnt to take it with a pinch of salt.