Jim Webb Quotes

I have been immeasurably honored to serve the people of Maine for nearly 40 years in public office and for the past 17 years in the United States Senate. It was incredibly difficult to decide that I would not seek a fourth term in the Senate.

Public men rarely keep their promises to retire from public life.

I sort of have stepped out of the public eye, and it's actually been really refreshing.

Although I will miss serving you in the Senate, I look forward to spending more time with family, especially my sweet wife Elaine, whose unwavering love and support made all of this possible.

I feel like I have had the most amazing life in my public service. And for the last 17 years, ever since my husband started running for president, I have been in the spotlight, working hard. And this job is incredibly all-encompassing. So I think I'm looking forward to maybe taking some time off

I don't want to spend the rest of my life in politics. When I'm finished with my term as governor, I'm going back to the life that's waiting for me in the private sector.

My wife used to be an anchorwoman in Arizona, so she knew John McCain, and she liked him, and I kinda liked him.

I'd got to a point where I wanted a break.

My juices needed restoring. I needed a sabbatical from the record business.

I have always heard that you need to give yourself a long time to unplug when you do a sabbatical. I unplugged so fast I was a little concerned that I was losing brain capacity.

We've all been tired and thought we wanted a long vacation when all we needed was a few days off, but didn't know it.

When you retire you want to get as far away as possible from the game for a couple of years.

I had no intention of getting back into politics. I was teaching at Bowdoin and happily retired from politics.

I just thought I'd take a break from publishing for a while.

Enough is enough. Six years you serve the countries. You been working hard. You sacrifice your time even your life. And, even your family life. So it's, it's time for me to go back as a private citizen. And contribute to the Thai society outside political arena.

When I lose the sense of motivation and the sense to prove something as a basketball player, it's time for me to move away from the game.

Periodically over the years I've always taken periods of time away from acting.

I think I grew up really fast; I grew up in this really fast-paced business, and I never understood what it meant to take a break or take time off or recover, and I paid for it.

I take a hiatus every now and again, but I'm not good at that.

Year by year we are learning that in this restless, strenuous American life of ours vacations are essential.

Comedy to the Senate? Well, there certainly hasn't been a satirist or a political satirist who's done that. So, that really was uncharted territory during the campaign. But I think it's a good thing. Some people thought that it was an odd career arc, but to me it made absolute sense.

I didn't get to the Senate by accident.

Yeah, there was a six-year period where I was pretty much done with show business. During college and then for about two years after college.

One of the reasons for retiring from public life was to avoid further speechmaking.

I can very much enjoy taking a year off. Whereas some people would feel crippled by that, I can feel enlarged by it.