Quotes By Chris Christie

The three top issues have to be restoring jobs and private sector job growth to our country, getting the entitlement mess under control, and restoring back to our country a sense of self-confidence that Americans can achieve whatever we want to achieve.

Everyone wants to demagogue everyone else. That may be good politics, but it's awful policy.

And on this you have my pledge - unlike in the past, when you stood up and did what was right, this governor will not pull the rug out from underneath you - I will sign strong reform bills.

A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing, yes nothing, for full family medical, dental and vision coverage over her entire career. What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime.

The argument for getting our own house in order is not an argument for turning our back on the world. We cannot and should not do that.

Today we must make a pact with each other to end this reckless conduct with the people's government.

I said we are going to balance an $11 billion budget deficit in a $29 billion budget, so by percentage, the largest budget deficit in America, by percentage, larger than California, larger than New York, larger than Illinois. And we're going to balance that without raising taxes on the people of the state of New Jersey.

The job of a leader, the job of a governor, the job of a president, is to get the people in the room and bang enough heads together and rub enough arms and cajole enough to have them put the country and the state's greater interest ahead of their own personal partisan interest. That's what we did in New Jersey and that's the model for America.

I can guarantee you this, that more pension and benefit reforms which I will consider arbitration reform to be one of them, are things that when they come to my desk, they will be signed.

We pay a price when special interests win out over the collective national interest.

Now our founding fathers had the wisdom to know that social acceptance and popularity were fleeing, and that this country's principles needed to be rooted in strengths greater than the passions and the emotions of the times.

I'm so tired of talking about Warren Buffett.

The truth was you can't continue to spend the kind of money our spending on all these entitlement programs. I think we need more people in public life who are willing to say, no, we can't afford certain things. No, we can't do certain things.

If anybody ran a business like that they would be out of business quickly, and Barack Obama's leadership is driving this business, the United States of America, toward a fiscal cliff.

Today, the biggest challenge we must meet is the one we present to ourselves. To not become a nation that places entitlement ahead of accomplishment. To not become a country that places comfortable lies ahead of difficult truths. To not become a people that thinks so little of ourselves that we demand no sacrifice from each other.

I absolutely believe that, come November 2012, I'm going to be governor of New Jersey and not in any other office. But the fact of the matter is, if Gov. Romney, who's going to be our nominee, picked up the phone and called me to talk about this, I love my country enough and I love my party enough to listen.

Well, let me tell you, after three years of Obama, we are hopeless and changeless, and we need Mitt Romney to bring us back, to bring America back.

They said it was impossible to touch the third rail of politics, to take on public-sector unions and to reform a pension and health benefits system that was headed to bankruptcy. But with bipartisan leadership, we saved taxpayers $132 billion dollars over 30 years and saved retirees their pensions. We did it.

And I think if the president's made a mistake here, it's this laid-back kind of approach where he's waiting for someone else to solve the problem. Some people say it's a political strategy. No matter what it is, it's not effective in solving problems.

You're saying 'will it become politically unpopular to have the position I'm having.' If it does, so be it.

And the greatest lesson that mom ever taught me though was this one. She told me there would be times in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected. Now she said to always pick being respected.

I don't think there's anybody in America who thinks my personality is best suited to being Number Two.

Higher taxes is the road to ruin. We must and we will shrink our government, and that means making some tough choices, tightening our belts.

I think America needs lots of tough people. Not just me. I think America needs to get tougher, all of us.

Given my last position, that I was the first U.S attorney post 9/11 in New Jersey, I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day at the hands of radical Muslim extremists. And their sensitivities and concerns have to be taken into account.

Sometimes, when you see the newspaper and you read something I said, you say, 'Oh, I can't believe he said that.'

I know we can fix our problems. When there are people in the room who care more about doing the job they were elected to do than they worry about winning reelection, it is possible to work together, achieve principal compromise, and get results for the people who give us these jobs in the first place.

I believe we have become paralyzed, paralyzed by our desire to be loved. Now our founding fathers had the wisdom to know that social acceptance and popularity were fleeing, and that this country's principles needed to be rooted in strengths greater than the passions and the emotions of the times.

We believe - we believe that, if we tell the people the truth, that they will act bigger than the pettiness we see in Washington, D.C. We believe it is possible to forge bipartisan compromise, and stand up for our conservative principles.

It's not that I'm universally loved. We know I'm not in New Jersey. But what they do say in New Jersey is, 'We like him, and we think he's telling us the truth.' I think we need to have that type of politics on the national level.