What you have just said, Mr President, speaks very well of you as a man. It does not speak well of you as a president.

-Petersen, Henry Edward
  On President Nixon's remark that he would need proof of the guilt of aides John Ehrichman and H R Hadelman on the Watergate break-in and cover-up before he could fire them. Quoted in Richard M Nixon RN:The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (1978).

I made a very deliberate decision not to ask the President, so that I could insulate him from the decision and provide some future deniability for him if it ever leaked out.

-Poindexter,John Marlan
  On his action in diverting funds from arms sales at Iran^Contra hearings,15 Jul.

If the President has a bully pulpit, then the First Lady has a white glove pulpit†more refined, restricted, ceremonial, but it's a pulpit all the same.

-Reagan, Nancy
  In the NewYorkTimes,10 Mar.

For eight years I was sleeping with the President, and if that doesn't give you special access, I don't know what does!

-Reagan, Nancy
  MyTurn (withWilliam Novack).

I thought I was Chief of Staff to the President, not to his wife.

-Regan, Donald Thomas
  On submitting his resignation. For the Record.

Will you please tell me what you do with all the vice presidents a bank has?† The United Statesisthebiggest business institution in the world and they only have one vice president and nobody has ever found anything for him to do.

-Rogers,Will
  Speech, International Bankers'Association.

It was the summer when a president's penis was on everyone's mind, and life, in all its shameless impurity, once again confounded America.

-Roth, Philip Milton
The Human Stain.

The notion of a defence that will protect American cities is one that will not be achieved, but it is that goal that supplies the political magic in the President's vision.

-Schlesinger,James
  Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 6 Feb.

Go little book, thy self present, As child whose parent is unkent: To him that is the president Of noblesse and of chivalry, And if that Envy bark at thee, As sure it will, for succour flee.

-Spenser, Edmund
  The Shepherd's Calendar,'To His Book'.

Consumer: A person who is capable of choosing a president but incapable of choosing a bicycle without help from a government agency.

-Stein, Herbert
  Washington Bedtime Stories.

In America, any boy may become president. I suppose that's just one of the risks that he takes.

-Stevenson, Adlai E(wing)
Attributed.

We elected a President, not a Pope.

-Streisand, Barbra
  Referring to Bill Clinton.To journalists at theWhite House, 5 Feb.

Why should not a large shareholder sometimes name the president?

-Tanaka, Kakuei
  Responding to criticism that candidates for the premiership must win his approval. Quoted in the Financial Times,11 Oct.

The President hears a hundred voices telling him that he is the greatest man in the world. He must listen carefully indeed to hear the one voice that tells him he is not.

-Truman, Harry S
  In ThisWeek, 5 Apr.

Being president is like riding a tiger†keep on riding or be swallowed.

-Truman, Harry S
Quoted in the NewYorkTimes, 28 Dec1984.

To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for the blind, venomous, and ungrateful client; still, one must make the best of the case, for the purposes of Providence.

-Updike,John Hoyer
  Polk. Buchanan Dying, act 2.