Quotes from Gary Johnson

My next-door neighbor's two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.

Getting elected Governor of New Mexico, I really did enjoy that job. I thought I made a really big difference, and I think the same running for president of the United States - that I could make a really big, positive difference.

I was the Republican governor of the heavily Democratic state of New Mexico. I focused on good government, and I got it done - just like my running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld. The people of New Mexico reelected me by a comfortable margin. Ditto for Weld.

In New Mexico... I may have vetoed more legislation as governor of New Mexico than all the other governors in the country combined.

I just think everything we do has an unintended consequence. We take out Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Iraq was the check against Iran.

I support gay unions. I think the government should get out of the marriage business completely - leave marriages to the churches. And grant civil unions to gay couples, grant civil unions to a man and woman.

I don't personally have a sense that life starts at conception. I don't personally have that sense.

I hope that people will see that we don't have to sit by the sidelines and watch as the two major parties limit their choices to slightly different flavors of the status quo. It is, in fact, possible to join the fray, stand up for principles and offer a real alternative.

I agree that the two-party system stomps on any kind of competition. A great first step is to open the presidential debates to all qualified candidates, including the Libertarians. If that happens, the Libertarian party will experience unprecedented growth.

That's the first sign you know you're a Libertarian. You see the red light. You stop. You realize that there's not a car in sight. And you put your foot on the gas.

Regardless of my legislation, spending has to be stopped.

One of the things government should be around for is to deal with catastrophes. It should do that well. To me, that's a government function, and we shouldn't be playing political games with it.

Millennials - who will soon be a full one-third of American adults - may be especially ready to become engaged in politics with a candidate who wants to give them a government that will leave them alone and get its finances in order so that they don't inherit an economic collapse.

We should be open to a discussion on keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. I don't know how that manifests itself, but I'm looking to get elected president of the United States. I just want to let people know I have an open mind about how we might - how government might - interject itself in a lot of the problems we have.

The current prohibition laws are forcing drug disputes to be played out with guns in our streets. We need to put a stop to this criminal drug element in our country.

I believe we can, and must, strike a balance between our shared American values of religious liberty and freedom from discrimination. My concerns lie with the possible consequences of politically-driven legislation which claims to promote religious liberty but instead rolls back the legal protections held by LGBT Americans.

I'm going to make the claim that I'm stronger than Obama when it comes to civil liberties, and I'm going to make the claim that I'm stronger than Romney when it comes to dollars and cents.

I just feel abandoned. And I feel, I don't feel represented by the Republican Party. I have always had to defend the social side of the Republican Party by saying that it's not the majority, that it's not their focus, when everything suggests just the opposite.

We're on the verge of a financial collapse unless we balance the budget, and that means some really, really tough decisions.

I was your C student. I paid attention in the classes that were about how to get elected.

New Mexico is the second Hollywood. No, it is, it is. They built all sorts of film studios.

I was raised a Christian. I'd like to think I have Christian values. I don't attend church.

I think the world looks down on Republicans for their socially conservative views, which includes religion in government.

I think I view the system the same way that Ayn Rand views the system - that it really oppresses those that create, if you will, and tries to take away from those that produce and give to the non-producers.