"Cyanide is a scare word." - Director of the Texas Water Quality Board "It just makes good sense to put all your eggs in one basket." - Texas Rep. Joe Salem speaking on an amendment requiring all revenues to go into the state treasury "Lemme give ya' a hypothetic." - Texas Rep. Renal Rosson "Ain't nothin' in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos." - Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower "And now, will y'all stand and be recognized?" - Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis to a group of handicapped people in wheelchairs "Dallas salutes a person who can buy a piece of art, but not a person who can create one." - A. C. Greene "No thanks, once was enough." - Texas Governor Bill Clements, asked if he had been born again "Oh good. Now he'll be bi-ignorant." - Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower when told that Texas Governor Bill Clements had been studying Spanish "I'd just make a little bit of money, I wouldn't make a whole lot." - Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis defending himself against the charge that he would personally profit from a bill he had introduced "Well, there never was a Bible in the room." - Texas Governor Bill Clements, asked about repeatedly lying about the SMU football scandal "I am filled with humidity." - Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis "Spending on the military doesn't increase the deficit." - Ronald Reagan "If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want drillin' rights on that man's head." - Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower discussing President George Bush's policies "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time." - George Bush discussing a Walter Mondale comment that he didn't have the manhood to apologize for an incorrect assertion "If it's dangerous to talk to yourself, it's probably even dicier to listen..." - Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower "I move we recess to go outside and throw up." - Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis during a budget hearing "This is a real competitive business." - A gas station owner, when asked to explain the rapid rise in gasoline prices when Kuwait was invaded "...idiots, imbeciles, aliens, the insane and women..." - law standing in Texas until 1918 regulating who could not vote "It's the sediment of the House that we adjourn." - Texas House Speaker Wayne Clayton "Let's do this in one foul sweep." - Texas House Speaker Wayne Clayton "This is unparalyzed in the state's history." - Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis "I want to thank each and every one of you for having extinguished yourselves this session." - Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis "We'll run it up the flagpole and see who salutes that booger." - Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis "There's a lot of uncertainty that's not clear in my mind." - Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis "This bill, if passed, will derail the ship of state." - Speaker of the New York Assembly Stanley Steingut "This session has been hit by an avalanche of creepin' paralysis." - Speaker of the New York Assembly Stanley Steingut "What is scattered to the wind here is just a drop in the bucket." - member of New York City Council "As we debate this bill, the sword of Damocles is hanging over Pandora's box." - member of New York City Council "I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you." - anon. "There are still places where people think that the function of the media is to provide information." - Don Rottenberg "Which one is that?" "I just voted the way my wife told me to; she knew what it was." - Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, when asked how he had voted on the only proposition on the Texas ballot