Angus King Quotes

#1. I'm old enough to remember Richard Nixon. They called it the imperial presidency when he was refusing to spend money that Congress had appropriated.

Angus King

#2. Every day in America, about 25,000 people buy a quarter-inch drill. But nobody in America wants a quarter-inch drill. What they want are holes.

Angus King

#3. My view of the filibuster is either you've got to lower vote edge or make people really filibuster if they feel that seriously about a piece of legislation.

Angus King

#4. I have a Twitter account; I have a fantastic Facebook page.

Angus King

#5. I had no intention of getting back into politics. I was teaching at Bowdoin and happily retired from politics.

Angus King

#6. My desire is to be as independent as I can be, as long as I can be, subject to being effective.

Angus King

#7. If it's necessary to join a caucus and get a committee assignment, I'll do it.

Angus King

#8. I think it's important to also realize that this isn't a case of Apple being asked to simply flip a switch or, you know, plug in a wire from one place to another. They're being asked to write new software that doesn't exist. They purposefully did not create this kind of backdoor ...

Angus King

#9. I worked in the Senate in the 1970s. I worked for the Labor, Public Welfare Committee, and we had Ted Kennedy and my old boss, Bill Hathaway, and Walter Mondale.

Angus King

#10. I think that people have to reward those individuals who are prepared to work across the political aisle. I don't see any other way; if you don't talk to people with whom you disagree, you're never going to solve problems.

Angus King

#11. It's hard running as an independent. I wouldn't have won the Senate election if I hadn't been governor. I had credibility. The hard part is getting voters to the point where they think it's thinkable and not a waste of time.

Angus King

#12. There's a host of difficult issues here, and that's why when you mentioned at the top of the show that the committees were looking at this, that's where I think we should be going.

Angus King

#13. I've come to realize that an unencumbered U.S. senator is a profound threat to the whole system. It's somebody that they can't put in a box and say, 'Oh, well, we know how this guy is going to vote.'

Angus King

#14. Well, first let's say that the fundamental responsibility of any government is national security - in the preamble to the Constitution, provide for the common defense and insure domestic tranquility.

Angus King

#15. I would say it would be worth it if, in fact, it would - if you could demonstrate that that would be the case and that the results and ramifications around the world wouldn't lead to more problems and more people dying. It's a very complex issue, and that's why I think we need to decide it.

Angus King

#16. One of my life principles is that if something isn't working, doing something harder isn't necessarily going to produce the same result.

Angus King

#17. Somebody said, 'You may be a committee chair.' I don't think so. I don't think anybody would want me that much.

Angus King

#18. How can you work with someone if you went into their state to campaign against them?

Angus King