"As Americans, we don't see the role of government as guaranteeing outcomes, but allowing free men and women to flourish based on their own vision, their hard work and their personal responsibility."

"It is through states that the American people get the job done every day, often in spite of a deeply flawed bureaucratic federal government."

"I stand before you as the governor of Texas but also stand before you the son of two tenant farmers. Ray Perry who came home after 35 bombing missions over Europe to work his little corner of land out there and Amelia who made sure that my sister Milla and I had everything that we needed, included hand sewing my clothes until I went off to college."

"I got all the respect in the world for the front-runners in this race, but ask yourself: If we replace a Democratic insider with a Republican insider, you think we're really going to change Washington, D.C.? You don't have to settle for Washington and Wall Street insiders who supported the Wall Street bailout and the Obamacare individual mandate."

"Politics in America is the binding secular religion."

"Woman throughout the ages has been mistress to the law, as man has been its master."

"I wasn't a normal professor. I had worked in government. I hadn't written nine zillion books. I was a hands-on professor."

"People go to movies on Saturday to get away from the war in Iraq and taxes and election news and pedophiles online and just go and have some fun. I like doing movies that are fun."