Quotes By J. C. Watts

I like to call the ethos I grew up with 'Oklahoma values.' But you'd be just as accurate if you said 'American values.' Except for our lack of a seacoast, Oklahoma has a little bit of just about everything that's American.

Individual responsibility, hard work, paying attention in school, faith, family all these things are important.

Like any group that has endured much, African Americans have created a strong and mutually reinforcing sense of group identity. That's not a bad thing in and of itself.

For longer than I've been involved in the political process, the Republican establishment has claimed to want to provide an alternative for the black community, yet party elite refuse to show up for the game.

The Democratic Party has taken the black community for granted and said, 'This is the most loyal constituency we have. They're not going anywhere.' But the Republican Party has said, 'That's the most loyal constituency Democrats have. They're not going anywhere. We've got to win without them.'

I have often said one of the reasons more blacks don't support Republicans is because they don't trust the GOP establishment.

I don't know if anybody has moved up the ladder more quickly than I have.

In 2008, as a matter of fact, I had people accusing me of being a Senator Obama supporter because I wouldn't slam him. I said, 'Well, consider the fact that I voted for impeachment for President Clinton, but it wasn't a personal vote. I voted based on the facts and the law and the Constitution and what we were dealing with.'

I think in politics, in Congress, you often do things that are Republican, or you do things because you're a Democrat. Sometimes that's good, obviously, and sometimes that's obviously bad. But in the news business, there's no such thing as Republican or Democratic news. News is news.

The strength of America is not in Washington.

My work in the House of Representatives, at this time in my life, is completed. It is time to return home.

Having a Republican candidate speak at the NAACP convention is like trying to build a house starting at the roof. If you don't have a foundation, the roof isn't going to stand.

I think the Republican Party should be a pro-life party. I am pro-life. I do not apologize for that. On the flip side of that coin, the Republican Party has been big enough to allow pro-choice advocates to be heard.

Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught.

You always hear 'black Republican,' but you never hear 'white Democrat.' We've got to get beyond the labels and stereotypes. Other people have hang-ups about it. I don't.

I'm looking forward to the day when America will mature to the point that we are a color-blind society. I'm not so sure that in politics that will ever be reality, because politics has a way of separating us based on skin color.

Good policy makes good politics and what I've done has been good politics.

Consider in Washington, around the country today we are talking about balanced budgets, paying down our national debt, getting the economy going, defending ourselves, activist judges. Newt Gingrich did all those things when he was speaker. We got tax relief. We got balanced budgets. We got, you know, job creation. We paid down our national debt.

Republicans think that the NAACP is the only voice in the black community. It is a voice in the black community. But it's not the only voice.

Republicans and Democrats have used accounting gimmicks and competing government analyses to deceive the public into believing that 2 + 2 = 6. If our leaders cannot agree on the numbers, if 'facts' are fictional, how can they possibly have a substantive debate on solutions?

It doesn't take a lot of strength to hang on. It takes a lot of strength to let go.

My views on everything from welfare to a balanced budget to affirmative action can be traced to what Buddy and Helen Watts taught me as a young boy growing up poor but proud in Eufaula.

One of the Republicans' major products is dream making. People are dying to get into this country... not out of it.

Serving in Congress has been more than an honor; it has been one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life... It has been a wonderful ride. It has been a wonderful journey.

That's the way blacks have been encouraged to think: that we got to stick together. You've got a situation today where if a black person says he thinks O.J. Simpson's guilty, other blacks will cut their eyes at him and say, 'You ought to go somewhere and sit down and shut up.'

I guess probably in my time in politics, it continued to be affirmed to me that the African-American community, despite being subscription television's most valuable customers, they are very underserved by cable and satellite television programming options.

In my wildest imagination, I never thought that the fifth of six children born to Helen and Buddy Watts - in a poor black neighborhood, in the poor rural community of Eufaula, Oklahoma - would someday be called Congressman.

I think you grow wherever God plants you. I hope I'm growing as a person of faith, as a Christian. That should be our number one objective this journey of life. That all starts with a personal intimate relationship with Christ and then being in prayer every single day about all of those things - being tenacious about it.

As an Oklahoma quarterback, you learn to perform under pressure.

When you look at the results that Newt Gingrich got when he was speaker, he got results for the American people.