Iowa famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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It is true that I was born in Iowa, but I can't speak for my twin sister.
-- Abigail Van Buren -
I wanted to say to Governor Dean, don't be hard on yourself about hooting and hollering. If I had spent the money you did and got 18 percent, I'd still be in Iowa hooting and hollering.
-- Al Sharpton -
I'm a member of the Academy, but I don't know who all the other Academy members are. It's not like a politician who knows who is in the Iowa caucus.
-- Albert Brooks -
I never graduated from Iowa, but I was only there for two terms - Truman's and Eisenhower's.
-- Alex Karras -
I just finished 'Butter' for Weinstein, a comedy with this incredible cast - Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde, Alicia Silverstone - all-star cast and it was a fun set to be on. I've gotten really lucky to get all these down-to-earth cast members. 'Butter''s about butter carving in Iowa.
-- Ashley Greene -
I'm happy wherever I go, whatever I do. I'm happy in Iowa, I'm happy here in California.
-- Ashton Kutcher -
You see for me, America is an idea. It is a stage for transformation. I felt when I came to Iowa City from Calcutta that suddenly I could be a new person . . . What America offers me is romanticism and hope . . . Suddenly, I found myself in a country where
-- Bharati Mukherjee -
I had a 2-week courtship with a fellow student in the fiction workshop in Iowa and a 5-minute wedding in a lawyer's office above the coffee shop where we'd been having lunch that day. And so I sent a cable to my father saying, 'By the time you get this, Daddy, I'll already be Mrs. Blaise!'
-- Bharati Mukherjee -
My debut upon the world's stage occurred on February 26, 1845, in the State of Iowa.
-- Buffalo Bill -
When I left the University of Iowa and made the decision to come to Rutgers, I said to my athletic director, as both of us stood there crying, 'I wish I could just take Iowa to the East Coast. That would be the best of all worlds.' Of course, I couldn't. I have the best of all worlds now by being at Rutgers, being in this part of the country and being able to embrace and receive the great prestige that is part of the Big Ten.
-- C. Vivian Stringer -
It wouldn't do me much good to back somebody that won in Iowa if they can't carry on the campaign elsewhere.
-- Chuck Grassley -
Strengthening local airports in Iowa is important for economic development and improving the quality of life our rural areas and urban communities
-- Chuck Grassley -
In any year, the stats in Iowa show we are in a relatively safe location, but that can change dramatically; a lot of it depends on what travels through our campus.
-- Chuck Green -
When I left Iowa, I definitely never wanted to stand in front of a group of academics again and see if they approved of me. I made up my mind to take my work to the actual reading public.
-- Daniel Woodrell -
In 1988, as an unknown candidate, totally unknown, I won Iowa, came in second in New Hampshire, won South Dakota. I was ahead in every Super Tuesday state the day after South Dakota. The only problem was I didn't have enough money. I had a million dollars left, and Al Gore had three and Michael Dukakis had three and it was lights out.
-- Dick Gephardt -
The tolerance of the public is diminishing. We're spending time on the wrong people. It's nutty. There has to be a better way. Why are we stripsearching Aunt Molly from Iowa and letting on Richard Reid?
-- Donald J. Carty -
What are you trying to protect heterosexual marriages from? There isn't a limited amount of love in Iowa. It isn't a non-renewable resource. If Amy and Barbara or Mike and Steve love each other, it doesn't mean that John and Mary can't.
-- Ed Fallon -
Iowa City is okay as Midwestern cities go, but theres no food, no culture, no ocean.
-- Elin Hilderbrand -
I'm 100% Norwegian. Three generations removed and all continuous inbreeding of Norwegian of Minnesota and Iowa, so I traveled to Norway before.
-- Eric Christian Olsen -
Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for stars.
-- Fred Allen -
My teaching began in 1936 at Iowa State College where T. W. Schultz was the department chairman.
-- George Stigler -
The thing I'm most proud of here at Iowa is putting the ANF on our headgear.
-- Hayden Fry -
Some of my educated Filipino friends were aspiring poets, but their aspirations were all in the direction of the United States. They had no desire to learn from the bardic tradition that continued in the barrios. Their ideal would have been to write something that would get them to Iowa, where they would study creative writing.
-- James Fenton -
Our family was very fond of the University of Iowa. We thought it was a good place to go.
-- James Van Allen -
I was born in Hawaii, but I was raised in Iowa.
-- Jason Momoa -
Rick Perry was philosophical about (his election losses). He said, 'Last week was Iowa. Yesterday was New Hampshire. ' He said at least it's giving him a chance to learn the names of all the states.
-- Jay Leno -
John Kerry was the big winner in Iowa. Ted Kennedy introduced Kerry as the 'comeback kid.' That used to be Bill Clinton's name - because every time he would come back to a city, he would find out if he had a kid or not.
-- Jay Leno -
You gotta love Rick Perry's swagger. The Texas Governor is out there in the Iowa cornfields, unabashedly going to toe-to-toe with President Obama, doing his best to instantly cast himself as the big dog in the Republican pack.
-- Jeff Goodell -
I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa.
-- John Dalton -
Political pandering comes in all shapes and sizes, but every four years the presidential primary bring us in contact with its purest form - praising ethanol subsidies amid the corn fields of Iowa.
-- John Sununu -
I'm not competing in Iowa for a reason.
-- Jon Huntsman, Jr. -
I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm, so when I come to Washington, I'll know how to cut pork.
-- Joni Ernst -
I'm an ecumenical reader, grew up with all sorts of fiction, teach writing, went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop, so my tastes and interests are broad.
-- Justin Cronin -
Before she became the Girl from Nowhere-the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years-she was just a little girl in Iowa, named Amy. Amy Harper Bellafonte.
-- Justin Cronin -
I love mythology, grew up loving it. I'm a middle kid, big family, that's the thing you did in the farm country. I lived in Iowa, I loved mythology. I don't know, we're like that.
-- Kellan Lutz -
Recruiting at Iowa has never been easy, and I don't think it ever will be. Our biggest challenge has always been to get people to visit our campus. If we can get them here, I feel like we give ourselves a chance because we do have a lot to offer.
-- Kirk Ferentz -
I pity the Jews trying to get through life with only half a Bible. That's like trying to get from here to San Francisco with a road map that stops at Dubuque, Iowa.
-- Kurt Vonnegut -
(On upcoming racing plans) Right now I am going to go back into training and then I am going to resurface and do the BAA Mile, The Boston Mile, and then I am going to do the USA Championships Mile out in Des Moines, Iowa. Then it is either going to be between The Penn or Drake Relays and then I will go back into training again and start another kind of session.
-- Leonel Manzano -
In the past, in order to continue as a candidate, a serious candidate, you had to be in the top three finishes in Iowa. You had to be in the top two out of New Hampshire. All our presidents elected in the past half-century finished either first or second in New Hampshire and in the top three in Iowa. That changed with the Citizens United, when we gave unlimited amounts of money.
-- Mark Shields -
Is there any other democracy where the voters are as spoiled as they are in the United States? Especially, of course, in certain states, such as Iowa and New Hampshire, where the old joke is literally true about the citizens who say they haven't yet formed an opinion about a candidate because they've only met the fellow a few times.
-- Michael Kinsley -
Well what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have, too.
-- Michele Bachmann -
I want to caucus in Iowa. I'll caucus all over the state. I don't caucus in California. You don't caucus where you live. It doesn't look good.
-- Pat Paulsen -
Contrary to slanderous Eastern opinion, much of Iowa is not flat, but rolling hills country with a lot of timber, a handsome and imaginative landscape, crowded with constant small changes of scene and full of little creeks winding with pools where shiners, crappies and catfish hover.
-- Paul Engle -
Every Christmas should begin with the sound of bells, and when I was a child mine always did. But they were sleigh bells, not church bells, for we lived in a part of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where there were no churches.
-- Paul Engle -
There must be an alternative between Hollywood and New York, between those two places psychically as well as geographically. The University of Iowa tries to offer such a community, congenial to the young writer, with his uneasiness about writing as an honorable career, or with his excess of ego about calling himself a writer.
-- Paul Engle -
I hope I am the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses.
-- Rick Perry -
In Iowa, we take care of people. That's all I think I need to say.
-- Steve King -
Quality, affordable housing is a key element of a strong and secure Iowa.
-- Tom Vilsack -
Let us tackle the big issues with bold ideas that transform Iowa to accomplish our shared mission to grow Iowa, and realize our shared vision of Iowa as the best place to live, work and raise a family.
-- Tom Vilsack -
We have a long tradition in this state of caring for our neighbors - it is truly an Iowa value.
-- Tom Vilsack -
I think that standing onstage on January 19th, and my father had just defied all expectations and won Iowa, was by far the most surreal moment.
-- Vanessa Kerry -
Howard Dean came in a disappointing third place. Afterwards Dean said 'Iowa is behind me and now I look forward to screaming at voters in New Hampshire.'
-- Conan O'Brien -
Chris Christie said he will top Donald Trump's Iowa State Fair helicopter entrance by riding in on a pony. As a result, all the ponies in Iowa have gone into hiding.
-- Conan O'Brien -
Hillary Clinton is now driving from New York to Iowa. It's been called the least-exciting spring break trip in history.
-- Conan O'Brien -
And of course, in the case of Barack Obama, had he not won primaries - and particularly the heavily important caucus in Iowa - if the public hadn't shown that they were prepared to vote for a black president, we wouldn't have one today.
-- Geoffrey Cowan -
I just came back from - with Trump when I endorsed him in Iowa, in Marshalltown, a little town - 27,000 - have a lot of Hispanics working there from Mexico in a private business, so they're still here. I'm not saying they're here illegally but they still come and they work, make money for their families, send the money back to Mexico or whatever, so it's a big problem.
-- Joe Arpaio -
We have felt for some time that if political candidates or their staff are willing to make the pilgrimage to North Iowa, the least we can do is show hospitality. And it's also a wonderful way to get to know these people who make our political system work.
-- Kurt Meyer -
I started with California, and I did not like it. I flew over to Seattle, and I did not like it much. I felt like Iowa is the place - I like the people and the environment.
-- Li Ang -
In China, I lived in a dormitory, and the government paid for everything - food, buses. In Iowa, I had to run after the bus, and cook for myself. The first weeks in the U.S., I was asking, Where is my food?
-- Li Ang -
In my 20s, my mom and I went and saw the bridges of Madison County, which are in Iowa, and I had seen that movie with Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. I've always done these Iowa road trips. I did this transcendental meditation course in Fairfield, Iowa. So I've known since my early 20s that someday I would buy a farm in Iowa.
-- Lissie -
While Donald Trump is showing some strength in places like Iowa, it's just not enough to get him close to getting the electoral votes that he needs to win.
-- Bill Burton -
The education needs in Silicon Valley versus rural Iowa versus Tennessee are very different.
-- Andy Ogle -
Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, bypassed the debate before the Iowa caucuses because he objected to the participation of moderator Megyn Kelly as well a press release defending her.Beyond the Trump tantrum, we wondered if this had something bigger to say about the state of the media and politics and how politics is practiced today.
-- Michel Martin -
The United States does not have a very good record in the Middle East. I think they have the best of intentions but I think the problem is that it's very difficult from Washington, or from Iowa or Nebraska to understand what is happening in this crazy part of the world. In some cases US diplomacy has been somewhat naive.
-- Moshe Arens -
I could be on 52nd and Third in Manhattan up and ask a strange for directions and they will help you, that's a rural heart. Your car breaks down in the middle of Iowa or somewhere, or Tennessee where I'm from, people want to help each other. Given each opportunity, you see how people come together.
-- Rodney Atkins -
If I'd grown up in Atlanta and then gone to Ottumwa, Iowa it may have been culture shock, but I was used to being in a small town and used to seeing the same people all the time and going to the same grocery store every day, so it wasn't that big of a deal for me. I was just excited to be on TV. I was just jumping for joy when I got there. I wasn't making any money, but I was sure happy.
-- Todd Grisham -
There was also a sense that if he [Obama] did not win in Iowa, that it was very unlikely that he would be able to come back and win the Democratic nomination and win the general election. It was sort of an all-or-nothing bet. The stakes were that high.
-- Josh Earnest -
There was always this sense, even early on in the campaign, that if the senator Obama could score this upset victory in Iowa, that there was a pretty good chance that he would end up being president of the United States.
-- Josh Earnest
