Sometimes comforting the afflicted does require afflicting the comfortable.
— Mario Cuomo
The beauty of America is that I don't have to deny my past to affirm my present. No one does. We can love this nation like a parent and still embrace our ancestral home like cherished grandparents.
Lincoln had bad press, too. He wasn't appreciated until after he was gone.
We Democrats still have a dream. We still believe in this nation's future.
I love immigrants. Legal, illegal - they're not to be despised.
I went to electric razors so I would not have to look at myself in the morning.
You can't ever make serious progress against terrorism unless you deal with Israel.
I think - something I learned recently looking up the meaning of ideology. If you look in American encyclopedias, it says, you know, 'Rules for - basic rules for a system of economics or politics.' If you look in the Oxford, it says that, and then it says... 'Despite - and people will hold these propositions despite events.'
Bill Clinton has done more to help the middle class than any leader in decades.
9/11 occurs, and you're going to rebuild, and after awhile, the memory will be there, but there will be something new there, and different, and functioning, and electric.
I had not even thought of running for president until one day in 1991, at a small fund-raiser, completely unanticipated, someone stood up and said, 'Hey, Mario, in all the years we've supported you, we've never heard you talk about the presidency, and we want to know why not.'
The Mafia is a question every time an Italian raises his head.
In this life, you should read everything you can read. Taste everything you can taste. Meet everyone you can meet. Travel everywhere you can travel. Learn everything you can learn. Experience everything you can experience.
David Robinson chose to stay at Navy. He talked about commitment, loyalty and values. I wonder how many of us would choose these virtues rather than the chance of becoming a millionaire, especially if you were a college sophomore when you had to make that choice.
There is a respectable body of economic thought that holds that casino gambling is actually economically regressive to a state and a community.
In '86 or '87, the welfare lists were at the lowest level in 17 years. Why? Because the economy was the best it was in 17 years. There were jobs.
Hate sells.
The American people need no course in philosophy or political science of church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman.
I'm not better than other politicians, but I'm different because I got into the game much later in life, after I had raised a family, after I had written a book, after I had been a successful lawyer. It's different when you get into this business after you've led a full life. I don't want to be a big man. I know who I am.
The first good player I watched as a kid was Joe DiMaggio, and that was like ballet. Since then, I played sandlot and college ball and came to understand how difficult it can be.
I will take a draft to the Yankees or to the Mets. A draft for president is not conceivable.
If I want to run for president, you'll be able to tell.
Barack Obama is probably one of the brightest in terms of sheer intelligence... also probably the best orator we've ever had as a president.
People like Pete Peterson, the former secretary of commerce and Blackstone and titan of Wall Street, etc., has been writing books for years about the debt and deficit.
Debates are boring.
In 1980, in 1984, millions of middle-class Democrats became Reagan Democrats, and more of them drifted toward the Republicans with Bush in 1988.
I am one who believes that the world goes from the slime to the sublime. And you can take Darwin and all your philosophers and all your ontologists, and that's the direction.
I had a chance to go on the Supreme Court of the United States, and my whole family was more disappointed in my deciding not to do that than in my deciding not to run for president - much more.
I did once answer the question 'What would you say on your tombstone?' I know what I would say: 'Mario Cuomo, 1932 - dash,' and, 'He tried.' That's it.
Decide exactly what you want to achieve. Do you want to help people, or do you want to be powerful?
I concentrated on a lot of things, so very few people saw me as an education governor, an infrastructure governor.
I wish I were as good a man as my son is.
There's something about rhetorical violence that is ugly and worrying.
I don't ever recall having a political argument with Bob Grant. I've known him a long time. I've always liked him.
My favorite thought about Abraham Lincoln is he believed in two things: loving one another and working together to make this world better.
A lot of my stories about the old days, they're delicious and funny. But every time I recall the early days, it's painful. With every anecdote, it's painful because you're summoning up the terribly, terribly difficult life of my parents. And it's painful because I didn't realize at the time how hard it was for them.
I love bunt plays. I love the idea of the bunt. I love the idea of the sacrifice. Even the word is good. Giving yourself up for the good of the whole.
There is no basis to say I'm being coy about running for president. If I chose to explore the presidency, I wouldn't do it in a backward way. I'll say, 'I'm exploring the presidency.'
In 1982, I wrote in my diary that life is motion, not joy. If the way you measure success in life is by how much joy it brings you, you're measuring inaccurately. Life is also sadness, defeat, striving. It is many things.
The biggest aggravation in the Arab world, the biggest reason for their anger toward us and the creation of those suicide terrorists, is Israel and the difficulty with the Palestinian issue.
Tax should be the same for everybody.
No one in the modern history of this country, no president, has done more to move toward a balanced budget than has President Bill Clinton.
The truth is that beginning in the 1970s, the heart of our Democratic party, America's strong striving middle class, began drifting away from us.
Every minute brings a new opportunity. Every minute brings new growth, new experiences.
If I made a mistake in terms of running for president, the mistake was not in refusing to run in '91.
America was born in outrageous ambition, so bold as to be improbable. The deprived, the oppressed, the powerless from all over the globe came here with little more than the desire to realize themselves.
There are only two rules for being successful: one, figure out exactly what you want to do, and two, do it.
Nobody has ever gotten a bigger push than Bill Clinton gave to Obama.
In 1962, President Kennedy succeeded in captivating Americans by explaining the advantages of being the first country to reach the moon and the dangers of allowing another nation to beat us there.
I guess a psychiatrist would say there's some good to the venting process, but it does also promote an attitude of saying, 'Hey there's nothing wrong with being filled with hate; there's so much of it around.' I don't like that.
