Selected Betty Ford Quotations
• The search for human freedom can never be complete without freedom for women.
• I was an ordinary woman who was called onstage at an extraordinary time. I was no different once I became first lady than I had been before. But, through an accident of history, I had become interesting to people.
• You never know what you can do until you have to do it.
• I've learned a lot about myself. Most of it is all right. When I add up the pluses and subtract the minuses, I still come out pretty well.
• We were in a position where my husband had been sworn into office during a very, very difficult time. There had been so much cover-up during Watergate that we wanted to be sure there would be no cover-up in the Ford Administration. So rather than continue this traditional silence about breast cancer, we felt we had to be public.
• My makeup wasn't smeared, I wasn't disheveled, I behaved politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?
• Captain Pursch ... gave me the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and told me to read it, substituting the words 'chemically dependent' for 'alcoholic.'
• It's always been my feeling that God lends you your children until they're about eighteen years old. If you haven't made your points with them by then, it's too late.
• Not my power, but the power of the position, a power which could be used to help.
• [Martha Graham] shaped my whole life. She gave me the ability to stand up to all the things I had to go through, with much more courage than I would have had without her.
• [About becoming First Lady at Nixon's resignation] I figured, okay, I'll move to the White House, do the best I can, and if they don't like it, they can kick me out. But they can't make me be somebody I'm not.
• [About her husband's appointment as Vice President in 1973] If I had known what was coming, I think I would have sat right down and cried.
More About Betty Ford
Also known as: Elizabeth Bloomer Warren Ford
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About These Quotes
Quote collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis. Each quotation page in this collection and the entire collection © Jone Johnson Lewis 1997-2006. This is an informal collection assembled over many years. I regret that I am not be able to provide the original source if it is not listed with the quote.
Citation information:
Jone Johnson Lewis. "Betty Ford Quotes." About Women's History. URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/betty_ford.htm . Date accessed: (today). (More on how to cite online sources including this page)
