Paul Begala

“I used to go in at 5:30 or 6:00 so I could run.”

“Never interrupt your opponent when he's destroying himself.”

“I try hard to be a good Catholic.”

“If it was about lying under oath - we actually know that Clinton certainly was deceptive, as most people would be about their sex lives - but, in fact, he did not lie.”

“I mean, for all of his faults and the troubles in his marriage, Bill Clinton is still married to a girl he met in the library 25 years ago at school. Can we say that about many of our other leaders today in America, including on the right wing?”

“Again, President Reagan was sort of an amiable presence out at the ranch by the last 6 months of his presidency. He had no effect on national policy at all.”

“This gets back to the fundamental lesson of political survival that Bill Clinton taught me, which is if you make it about the American people's lives instead of your life, you're going to be okay.”

“I grew up in Tom DeLay's district.”

“I don't like being a voyeur, looking into other people's marriages.”

“It must kill George Bush that John McCain is the most popular and Beloved Republican in America.”

“It taught me that Clinton's instinct to make this about your life as a citizen, rather than his as a human being, was the right answer to these things.”

“I was the guy that told Bill Clinton he was going to win. I had gotten the final polling numbers. He had a comfortable lead. He was not going to lose.”

“I think too many Democrats are too wimpy. But I think they're beginning to toughen up.”

“I'm very sunny. You know, I'm always optimistic.”

“One of the problems we saw in the last presidential election in our party is that our nominee, while winning the election, which we ought never to forget, often lost sight of the difference between strategy and tactics.”

“My view was that the campaign had been a sacred thing, that it had been a real compact, because I was there and I saw the connection that Clinton made with people, and the connection that they made with him.”

“There's the great line: the definition of a liberal is someone who's afraid to take their own side in a fight. And that's my problem with my fellow liberals.”

“It seems to me the American people never really forgave the Democrats for being right about Vietnam.”

“Most politicians, when they meet with a guy like me, or a guy like Carville, tell you about how they can win.”

“See, I think if it just became who's sleeping with whom, then there's no reason to prefer one party over the other, 'cause the truth is we're all sinners.”