Quotes from John McCain

In 1987, I had my first opportunity to provide 'advice and consent' on a Supreme Court nominee. At that time, I stated that the qualifications essential for evaluating a nominee for the bench included 'integrity, character, legal competence and ability, experience, and philosophy and judicial temperament.' On that test, Elena Kagan fails.

Public life has many more privileges than hardships.

Frankly, I would never accept an award from Vladimir Putin because then you kind of give some credence and credibility to this butcher, this KGB agent, which is what he is.

I think that Fox News is a bit schizophrenic.

As far as this business of solitary confinement goes, the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it's only a wave or a wink, a tap on the wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference.

When you're not winning, you're losing.

In the real world, as lived and experienced by real people, the demand for human rights and dignity, the longing for liberty and justice and opportunity, the hatred of oppression and corruption and cruelty is reality.

There's a whole generation that's retiring. It is unconscionable that the average salary of a lawyer is $79,000 a year and the average salary of a teacher is $39,000 a year.

I've seen enough killing in my life. I know how precious human life is and I don't need a lecture from you.

I have certainly seen my share of the world as it really is and not how I wish it would be.

And the people who live in the southern part of my state do not have a secure environment. To wit, there are signs that the government put up that say, 'Warning. You are in a drug smuggling area and a human smuggling area.'

Our society demands that women be treated equally and that we not discriminate against them.

I am a Republican. I'm loyal to the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. And I believe that my party, in some ways, has strayed from those principles, particularly on the issue of fiscal discipline.

America has much to gain in terms of jobs and trade by meeting the growing world demand for advanced, environmentally sound technologies.

Suppose that climate change is not real and all we do is adopt green technologies, which our economy and our technology is perfectly capable of. Then all we've done is given our kids a cleaner world.

I watch sports all the time. My wife Cindy says I would watch the thumb-suckers play the bed-wetters. I watch all sports and I enjoy all sports. It's been great fun in my life and a great diversion.

I'm older than dirt, I've got more scars than Frankenstein, but I've learned a few things along the way.

The first pork-barrel bill that crosses my desk, I'm going to veto it and make the authors of those pork-barrel items famous all over America.

Keep moving if you love life, and keep your troubles well behind you.

The fundamentals of America's economy are strong.

Our armed forces will fight for peace in Iraq, a peace built on more secure foundations than are found today in the Middle East. Even more important, they will fight for two human conditions of even greater value than peace: liberty and justice.

I'd much rather lose a campaign than lose a war.

Yet those who claim their liberty but not their duty to the civilization that ensures it, live a half-life, having indulged their self-interest at the cost of their self-respect…. Sacrifice for a cause greater than your self-interest, and you invest your lives with the eminence of that cause, your self-respect assured.

Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years, worked 10, 12 hours a day. And he wanted to buy the business, but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes