Quotes from Barney Frank

I have been mislabeled as a big advocate of low-income home ownership over rental.

In this view, the role of the great majority of Americans is simply to buy the products produced, work happily for their wages, and leave all of the significant economic decisions to the capitalists.

The fact that they're a congressionally chartered group should no more incline people to give to that group than the fact that it's National Pickle Month should make them eat more pickles.

What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history.

But when others suggested that the poor should not simply be the objects of these programs but also the subjects - that they should be actively involved in shaping the programs, making decisions about how to spend the money etc. - some of the previous supporters reconsidered.

While I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively high number of jobs created in April, the fact is that job creation during this recovery period has significantly lagged both historical experience in recovery, and the projections of the Bush Administration.

Ridicule is about the most powerful weapon possible.

Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.

I can tell you about health care and also about the financial reform bill. The Barack Obama, the President personally and his administration officials at his direction were very much involved.

The best humor is offered up to you by the stupidity of your opponents.

The problem with the war in Iraq is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.

It seems to me that politicians ought to use the same words as other people.

And I think there is too much bloviating around from politicians.

But here too it should be noted that the President's approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade.

For many of those who had historically supported welfare programs in the broadest sense, it was perfectly reasonable to enact legislation in which poor people were the objects of efforts to assist them.

People are entitled to the presumption of innocence.

I will tell you, I'm a lousy cook, but I think I'm a pretty good judge of a good meal.

The Clinton tax increase - which was an increase in taxes primarily on upper-income people - not only made the tax code more nearly progressive, it preceded one of the most productive economic periods in American life.

The Moral Majority supports legislators who oppose abortions but also oppose child nutrition and day care. From their perspective, life begins at conception and ends at birth.

Today, many people take for granted the notion that people whose lives are going to be very heavily affected by public policies should have a say in how they are formulated and carried out.

For most of my life, I have eaten to deal with stress.

Conservatives believe that from the standpoint of the federal government, life begins at conception and ends at birth.

I'm antisocial - there's no question about it.

I was still closeted, but from the day I decided to run for office, knowing that I was gay, I decided that I would, of course, still be closeted but that I would work very hard for gay rights. It would be totally dishonorable, being gay, not to do that. So I had that as kind of a secondary agenda.