Geraldine Ferraro Quotes

Some leaders are born women.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“If you think somebody cares about you and believes your life is worth saving, how can you give up?”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“I'd call it a new version of voodoo economics, but I'm afraid that would give witch doctors a bad name.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“My desk drawer is filled with all kinds of prayers.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

You don't have to have fought in a war to love peace.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“And I have to tell you as a grandmother, I worry about the fact that my grandchildren are going to be paying for all the spending, including military spending, that has gone on and the tax cuts that have come through.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“The polls indicated that I was feisty, that I was tough, that I had a sense of humor, but they weren't quite sure if they liked me and they didn't know whether or not that I was sensitive.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

I readily admit I was not an expert on foreign policy but I was knowledgeable and I didn't need a man who was the Vice President of the United States and my opponent turning around and putting me down.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“I do believe in the power of prayer.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“I don't like to practice ahead of time what I'm going to say.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“I didn't serve on a committee that dealt with foreign policy.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“See that's a goal that I think it's very good in the debate to find out who the person is.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“But I do think its necessary to have debates.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“President Reagan's one-liners were terrific.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“What are my sources of strength? My husband and my three kids, my health-care team, and my religion.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“I didn't look very sensitive and they didn't know me very well.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

I have been extremely lucky; I am a person who is currently living with a cancer that is under control.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“The bottom line as far as I was concerned was presenting to the public who Gerry Ferraro was.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

For one thing, one of the wonderful things that we now have is instead of the huge budget surpluses that President Clinton left us with, we now have these huge deficits that we're going to be facing into the future.

— Geraldine Ferraro

People who live through transplants or disasters like Sept. 11 are survivors.

— Geraldine Ferraro

I enjoyed debate on the floor but it's not really debate in the same way.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“I was a trial lawyer when I was elected to Congress.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“We've chosen the path to equality, don't let them turn us around.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“By choosing a woman to run for your nation's second highest office, you send a powerful signal to all Americans. There are no doors we cannot unlock. We will place no limits on achievement.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“The Republicans love to say that the Democratic Party is ruled by 'special interests.' But when pressed to name these 'special interests,' the usual reply is women, blacks, teachers, and unions. Those are 'special interests' to be proud of - because together they comprise the majority of Americans. What about the 'special interests' that dominate the Republican Party - the oil companies, the banks, the gun lobby, and the apostles of religious intolerance?”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“You don't go through a bloodbath like this and then walk away from it.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

The public is entitled to know whether or not I am married to Jack The Ripper.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“Babies aren't born knowing differences in color, gender, religions. They're taught those things. They're taught them at home. They're taught in the schools. They're taught in the churches. They're taught in the mosques, in the synagogues.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

Every time a woman runs, women win.

— Geraldine Ferraro

A wise man once said, 'Every one of us is given the gift of life, and what a strange gift it is. If it is preserved jealously and selfishly, it impoverishes and saddens. But if it is spent for others, it enriches and beautifies.' My fellow Americans: We can debate policies and programs, but in the end what separates the two parties in this election campaign is whether we use the gift of life for others or only ourselves.

— Geraldine Ferraro

The promise of our country is that the rules are fair. If you work hard and play by the rules, you can earn your share of America's blessings. Those are the beliefs I learned from my parents.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“I'm a competitive person, but I have never understood people's competitiveness at the expense of their colleagues.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“Modern life is confusing no "Ms take" about it.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“Leaders can be moral-and they should be moral-without imposing their morality on others.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“Well of course Bush got Kentucky, because it's a Republican city.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“You had to be tough to be a female member of Congress.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

Politics can be an ugly game, and in a national election the stakes get higher while the tactics get lower.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“When a guy gets elected to the Senate or the governor's mansion, he wakes up the next morning and says to himself, 'You're presidential material,'”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“Throwing Ronald Reagan out of office at the height of his popularity, with inflation and interest rates down, the economy moving and the country at peace, would have required God on the ticket and She was not available!”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“Such a strange thing. What was terrible for a healthy fetus has been wonderful at defeating the cancer cells.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

Let no one doubt, we will defend America's security and the cause of freedom around the world. But we want a president who tells us what America is fighting for, not just what we are fighting against. We want a president who will defend human rights - not just where it is convenient - but wherever freedom is at risk - from Chile to Afghanistan, from Poland to South Africa

— Geraldine Ferraro

You don't deliberately submit people you love to something like that. I don't think I'd run again for vice-president. Next time I'd run for president.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“I knew what leukemia and lymphoma were, but I had never heard of multiple myeloma.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

I am the first to admit that were I not a woman, I would not have been the vice-presidential nominee.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“If you don't run, you can't win.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“It's okay in this country to be sexist. It's certainly not okay to be racist.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

“I think Obama was terribly sexist.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

It was not so very long ago that people thought that semiconductors were part-time orchestra leaders and microchips were very small snack foods.

— Geraldine Ferraro

“I should have had a circuitous answer; that was a non-answer.”

— Geraldine Ferraro

We are a religious nation because we do not have a state religion, because the government guarantees freedom of religion but has no role in religion, because not only do we tolerate our religious differences, we celebrate them.

— Geraldine Ferraro