J. C. Watts Quotes

"It doesn't take a lot of strength to hang on. It takes a lot of strength to let go."

"Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught."

"Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking."

"I'm secure in who I am. I don't need the validation of those that would say, you have to be a certain thing in order to be accepted. I'm comfortable going against the grain if I need to."

"Republicans think that the NAACP is the only voice in the black community. It is a voice in the black community. But it's not the only voice."

"I do think, however, that there's a very diverse point of view in the African-American community. There's a lot of different voices that need to be heard. I don't claim and pretend to know the thoughts and opinions and ideas of all African-Americans."

"The strength of America is not in Washington."

"If you are explaining, you are losing."

"I think Newt Gingrich has a proven track record of changing Washington and getting results."

"I'm looking forward to the day when America will mature to the point that we are a color-blind society. I'm not so sure that in politics that will ever be reality, because politics has a way of separating us based on skin color."

"In addition, there is one title I cherish a great deal more than Congressman and that is the title of... Dad."

"I never got into politics for it to be a career. It doesn't take a lot of strength to hang on. It takes a lot of strength to let go."

"When it comes to the American dream, no one has a corner on the market. All of us have an equal chance to share in that dream."

"I am willing to compete on my merits and on my character - not with the color of my skin. We talk about being a color-blind society, but I don't think the political process could actually handle that."

"In my wildest imagination, I never thought that the fifth of six children born to Helen and Buddy Watts - in a poor black neighborhood, in the poor rural community of Eufaula, Oklahoma - would someday be called Congressman."

"Having a Republican candidate speak at the NAACP convention is like trying to build a house starting at the roof. If you don't have a foundation, the roof isn't going to stand."

"Republicans and Democrats have used accounting gimmicks and competing government analyses to deceive the public into believing that 2 + 2 = 6. If our leaders cannot agree on the numbers, if 'facts' are fictional, how can they possibly have a substantive debate on solutions?"

"The measure of a man is not how great his faith is, but how great his love is. We must not let government programs disconnect our souls from each other."

"For longer than I've been involved in the political process, the Republican establishment has claimed to want to provide an alternative for the black community, yet party elite refuse to show up for the game."

"I would love to be associated with some sports organization. I was a journalism major. That's kind of intriguing, to do something in the political-commentary arena."

"The past two decades revolutionized the way we access information. You and I can have our questions answered with the click of a mouse at any time of day. If America, both corporation and citizen alike, can use these services to solve problems, why can't Washington?"

"Good policy makes good politics and what I've done has been good politics."

"There's a whole lot more to the African-American community than entertainment and sports."

"I never got into politics for it to be a career."

"The establishment wonders why we can't get more of the black vote. It's because it's not doing the things necessary to establish a deeper relationship with the black community. Most black people don't think alike. Most black people just vote alike."

"I don't know if anybody has moved up the ladder more quickly than I have."

"That's the way blacks have been encouraged to think: that we got to stick together. You've got a situation today where if a black person says he thinks O.J. Simpson's guilty, other blacks will cut their eyes at him and say, 'You ought to go somewhere and sit down and shut up.'"

"The more I ponder some of the boneheaded decisions GOP candidates have made of late, I can't bring myself to believe that they are serious about capturing more than about 8 percent of the black vote."

"I guess probably in my time in politics, it continued to be affirmed to me that the African-American community, despite being subscription television's most valuable customers, they are very underserved by cable and satellite television programming options."

"I'm not driven to get back into politics. It's not on my top five things to do before I die, but saying that, I may be in politics in the next year or the next ten years. I've been on the front line for 12 years, four in state government, eight on the national level."