Ronald Reagan Jokes
"I hope you're all Republicans." -speaking to surgeons as he
entered the operating room following a 1981 assassination attempt
"What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now,
is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people
who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by
choice."
"Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you
lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."
"We are trying to get unemployment to go up, and I think we're going to
succeed."
"As a matter of fact, Nancy never had any interest in politics or anything
else when we got married."
I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the
first."
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the
government and I'm here to help.'"
"Well, I learned a lot....I went down to (Latin America) to find out from
them and (learn) their views. You'd be surprised. They're all individual
countries"
"Honey, I forgot to duck." -to his wife, Nancy, after surviving the
assassination attempt
"There is absolutely no circumstance whatever under which I would accept that spot. Even if they tied and gagged me, I would find a way to signal by wiggling my ears." -on possibly being offered the vice presidency in 1968
"I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." -during a 1984 presidential debate with Walter Mondale
"Facts are stupid things." -at the 1988 Republican National Convention, attempting to quote John Adams, who said, "Facts are stubborn things"
"Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."
"I don't know. I've never played a governor." -asked by a reporter in 1966 what kind of governor he would be
"How can a president not be an actor?" -when asked "How could an actor become president?'
"What does an actor know about politics?" -criticizing Ed Asner for opposing American foreign policy
"I don't know. I've never played a governor." -asked by a reporter in 1966 what kind of governor he would be
"What makes him think a middle-aged actor, who's played with a chimp, could have a future in politics?" -on Clint Eastwood's bid to become mayor of Carmel
"Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, you coast for awhile, you have a hell of a closing."
"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles."
"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk."
"Approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons
released by vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough
emission standards from man-made sources."