HOWARD BAKER

Demography is changing us as we are older societies, we're living longer. How the generations balance each other out, how that affects education and health care.

I intend to travel to Okinawa and to visit with Okinawa officials and the citizens of Okinawa at an early date. I will send my best analysis of that situation, including the local attitudes, back to Washington, to the government there.

We must examine then the concerns of the Government of Japan about the language of the treaty itself - of SOFA - and of the interim and further arrangements that have been made since 1995, and see whether or not we need to make any changes. Those are decisions I cannot make.

You've got to guard against speaking more clearly than you think.

It is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble.

Any time the United States government turns over an American citizen, including military personnel, to the government of another country, it is in our nature to want to make sure that they receive the best treatment, the fairest treatment, and the most humane treatment.

The most difficult thing in any negotiation, almost, is making sure that you strip it of the emotion and deal with the facts. And there was a considerable challenge to that here and understandably so.

I think and hope and believe that the Japanese government and the people of Japan will be happy and content with the progress of justice in this case and that it will not become a great issue in the future.

The central question is simply put: What did the president know and when did he know it?

Abraham Lincoln and Everett Dirksen understood with singular clarity that a great and diverse people do not speak with a single voice and that adherence to a rigid ideology leaves little room for compromise and response to change.

I've got other things to do with my life.

Just because you are adversaries or opponents in politics doesn't mean you have to be enemies.

There aren't many Presidents who have had an effect on the fundamental policies of the nation.

I suppose we should all sing "Bail to the Chief.

What did the President know and when did he know it?

You're the only man I know who would light a match to look into a gas can.

Cover-ups don’t work.

If interest rates don't come down, there is going to be bloody retribution, not from government, but from the people .... The market likes high rates. the market's keeping the price artificially high to increase profits.

If we give Al Haig his way, the next thing we know, we'll be carpet-bombing Central America.

Washington's a mean city ... it's savage.

He in Washington who does not toot his own horn may find it untooted.

The beginning of the decline of the Republic was the day they air-conditioned the Capitol.

In Washington I'm thought of as a conservative, but in Tennessee I'm thought of as a Bolshevik.

Listen more often than you speak.

The most difficult thing in any negotiation, almost, is making sure that you strip it of the emotion and deal with the facts.