Quotes By J. C. Watts

It doesn't take a lot of strength to hang on. It takes a lot of strength to let go.

Good policy makes good politics and what I've done has been good politics.

My views on everything from welfare to a balanced budget to affirmative action can be traced to what Buddy and Helen Watts taught me as a young boy growing up poor but proud in Eufaula.

Serving in Congress has been more than an honor; it has been one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life... It has been a wonderful ride. It has been a wonderful journey.

One of the Republicans' major products is dream making. People are dying to get into this country... not out of it.

Republicans and Democrats have used accounting gimmicks and competing government analyses to deceive the public into believing that 2 + 2 = 6. If our leaders cannot agree on the numbers, if 'facts' are fictional, how can they possibly have a substantive debate on solutions?

That's the way blacks have been encouraged to think: that we got to stick together. You've got a situation today where if a black person says he thinks O.J. Simpson's guilty, other blacks will cut their eyes at him and say, 'You ought to go somewhere and sit down and shut up.'

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

I guess probably in my time in politics, it continued to be affirmed to me that the African-American community, despite being subscription television's most valuable customers, they are very underserved by cable and satellite television programming options.

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

In my wildest imagination, I never thought that the fifth of six children born to Helen and Buddy Watts - in a poor black neighborhood, in the poor rural community of Eufaula, Oklahoma - would someday be called Congressman.

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

If you are explaining, you are losing.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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'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.

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.

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

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.

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.