Quotes By J. C. Watts

I think you grow wherever God plants you. I hope I'm growing as a person of faith, as a Christian. That should be our number one objective this journey of life. That all starts with a personal intimate relationship with Christ and then being in prayer every single day about all of those things - being tenacious about it.

As an Oklahoma quarterback, you learn to perform under pressure.

When you look at the results that Newt Gingrich got when he was speaker, he got results for the American people.

I still get to preach 14, 15 times a year. But you have to make a living.

If you are explaining, you are losing.

Reparations, I believe, are talked about for political reasons, trying to cater for the purpose of getting votes. If Congress was serious about reparations - in '93 and '94 the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the White House, and not one single Republican vote was needed for reparations.

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.

We need to remember that politics is all about people, not programs. We shouldn't want to take the humanness out of the political arena.

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

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 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.

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

The Republican Party is terrific at determining how a program will impact the federal budget, but we're not nearly as good as the Democrats in explaining to people how our agenda will directly benefit them and their families.

If diversity is O.K. for God, it ought to be O.K. for Republicans.

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.

Most of all, however, critics of black conservatives say we've forgotten where we came from. I may forget a federal budget number or, God forbid, to set the alarm clock for my weekly 6 a.m. flight to Washington, but I know exactly where I came from.

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.

In 1989 when I switched from Democrat to Republican, with God as my witness, not one thing changed about what I believed about one man and one woman in a marriage or about diversity of color. That's a good thing.

Everything I am I owe to my faith and secondly to parents who were old school.

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.

Governor is not the position to have in Oklahoma. It is the head coach of Oklahoma or Oklahoma State or Tulsa.

Well, Mark, I led the charge for five or six years to get reforms for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I was chairman of an organization called 'FM Policy Focus.' What we were saying was, if there was blip in the housing market, Fannie and Freddie would destabilize the greatest economy in the world.

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?

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

I embrace my blackness, just as I do my conservatism and my Christianity, but I don't want to be defined or pigeonholed by any one of the many elements that make up my character.

Affirmative action is a little like the professional football draft. The NFL awards its No. 1 draft choices to the lowest-ranked team in the league. It doesn't do this out of compassion or guilt. It's done for mutual survival. They understand that a league can only be as strong as its weakest team.

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.

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.

Some might think that George W. Bush had his shortcomings, but let me tell you something - history's going to be kind to George W. Bush.

I think that anybody that stays in school, gets good grades, pays the price, I think we are wealthy enough in the public and the private sector in America to make sure that every child in America that wants to continue their education, they should be able to do that.