Harry Reid quotes:

It has been my honor to support and work with President Barack Obama, a man who has brought courage and character to the presidency. President Obama's strength of character leads him to do the right thing, even when it isn't the easy thing.

We must stop the Tea Party before the United States Senate falls into the hands of extremists and ideologues who leave no room for reason or compromise, who don't recognize common ground even when they're standing on it.

(Harry Reid) was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama - a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.

I was born and raised in the high desert of Nevada in a tiny town called Searchlight. My dad was a hard rock miner. My mom took in wash. I grew up around people of strong values - even if they rarely talked about them.

President Bush is a liar. He betrayed Nevada and he betrayed the country... All Americans should be concerned, not just because he lied to me or the people of Nevada and indeed all Americans, but because the President's decision threatens Americans' lives.

Seniors love getting junk mail. It's sometimes their only way of communicating or feeling like they're part of the real world.

Some said he shouldn't save Detroit. But President Obama made the tough and right call to save more than a million American jobs in an important, iconic industry.

Now that our troops are mired in a dangerous effort to defeat the insurgency and are also trying to help rebuild the country, Americans of all political persuasions simply want the United States to succeed and our troops to be as safe as possible.

This nation has been through hard times. But those hard times have hardened our resolve. I'm ready to do the difficult work ahead. But I want to do that work with Barack Obama, and not a Tea Party ideologue. We can move America forward, but we can only do it together.

I am convinced that I do not want to give up more power to the White House, whether it's George Bush or Barack Obama. And I'm going to fight as hard as I can against President Obama on these earmarks and my Republican colleagues who hate to vote for them, but love to get them.

The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.

People in Nevada know me from the street to the ring to the Senate chambers. I've never had to prove my manhood to anyone.

We stopped the fighting [in 1991] on an agreement that Iraq would take steps to assure the world that it would not engage in further aggression and that it would destroy its weapons of mass destruction. It has refused to take those steps. That refusal constitutes a breach of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the armed conflict.

Some said he couldn't take on the insurance companies that were ripping us off. But President Obama made the tough and right call to save lives, save Medicare and ensure no one goes broke just because they get sick.

So the next thing I assume I'll be hearing from Republicans, they want to change rules some way, as they do on the House when you get a problem with ethics, they just change the rules.

We focused attention on what some believe are the flaws in the process leading to Senate consideration of the bill and the flaws of the bill itself.

This nation has been through hard times. But those hard times have hardened our resolve. Im ready to do the difficult work ahead. But I want to do that work with Barack Obama, and not a Tea Party ideologue. We can move America forward, but we can only do it together.

This 21st century economy holds great promise for our people. But unless we give all Americans the skills they need to succeed, countries like India and China will take good-paying jobs that should be ours.

The cold war was the longest war in United States history. Because of the nuclear capabilities of our enemy it was the most dangerous conflict our country ever faced. Those that won this war did so in obscurity. Those that gave their lives in the cold war have never been properly honored.

My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway. In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true.

So people have been hurting and I understand that. And it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we would be in a worldwide depression.

How are my ribs? They're so meaningless it's hard to believe,

The American people do not like privatization. They are afraid of the debt the president's willing to do. And they don't like benefit cuts. And everyone here should understand all 45 Senate Democrats are united. We are not going to let this happen.

Anarchists have taken over (the GOP).

We would be somewhat foolish to work out something on stopping us from going over the cliff and then a month or six weeks later Republicans pull the same game they did before and say, 'We're not going to do anything - unless this happens, we're not going to agree to increasing the debt ceiling.' I agree with the president, it has to be a package deal.

"...light-skinned," and with "no negro dialect."

For senators to complain that they didn't know this was happening, we had many, many meetings that have been both classified and unclassified that members have been invited to.

I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words.

It is a decision that will bring hope to millions of Americans. I know there's still a long ways to go with the legislation, but a large step has been taken by the majority leader today ... and I admire the majority leader for doing it

There's a lot we can do to improve American's retirement security, but it's wrong to replace the guaranteed benefit that Americans have earned with a guaranteed benefit cut of forty percent or more.

I can't stand John McCain.

We found ourselves in a hole that I didn't dig, but I have dug, dug and dug to try to get out of that hole.

We can move America forward with a strong middle class. We can move America forward with a strong Democratic majority in the Senate. And together we can move America forward with Barack Obama in the White House.

[Social Security ] is not in crisis at this stage. Leave Social Security alone. We have a lot of other places we can look that is in crisis. But Social Security is not.

After I became an attorney, the mother of two girls I'd known in high school came to see me. She'd endured years of heinous abuse from her husband that nearly destroyed her. I'd never suspected a thing.

American families cannot compete with billionaires. Our involvement in government should not be dependent on our bank account balances

As far as I'm concerned there shouldn't be a single boot on the ground. There's enough American blood in Iraq that lasts forever.

Coal makes us sick. Oil makes us sick. It's global warming. It's ruining our country. It's ruining our world.

Cut, Cap and Balance is worst legislation in history.

Despite all that good news, there's plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue, but they're being told all over America,

Do you know how I feel about that? I'm sure this is no big surprise... what a mistake. I should never have voted for that, but I accepted what [former Secretary of State] Colin Powell and the others said. But it took me just a matter of a few months to realize it was a bad mistake, and my record speaks for itself. I've spoken out against what was going on, not once, not twice, but lots of times. And I'm sorry that I was misled, but I was, and it was a mistake for me to vote for that war.

Enforcement alone does not work. Unless we address the gap between our immigration laws and reality, illegal immigration will not stop and the situation on the border will continue to be chaotic.

Everybody else, including the rich people, are willing to pay more. They want to pay more.

He [Mitt Romney] didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain, but obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?

I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday,

I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican.

I hopes the candidate [Donald Trump] is given fake intelligence briefings ... because you can't trust him.

I mean, that is a mop of real hair. He has hair like a 15-year-old ... and so, I have to acknowledge I am a little envious of his hair.

I take the threat of terrorism very seriously, and no one is more committed to hunting down terrorists and bringing them to justice, wherever they live, than I am.

I think it would be interesting to know about the Federal Reserve. I think we should audit the Federal Reserve. It's taxpayers money that is being used there

I understand that during [Sonia Sotomayor's] career, she's written hundreds and hundreds of opinions. I haven't read a single one of them, and if I'm fortunate before we end this, I won't have to read one of them.

If you're over age 50, the internet is something you're just learning about.

It is no surprise that the Republican-controlled Senate intelligence committee has once again caved in to the wishes of the White House and refused even to open an investigation. We cannot effectively legislate on the NSA spying issue if we do not know the facts, and we will not know them if the Republican-controlled intelligence committee persists in refusing to do its job.

It's time that America's government lived by the same values as America's families. It's time we invested in America's future and made sure our people have the skills to compete and thrive in a 21st century economy. That's what Democrats believe.

Legislation is the art of compromise.

Men, when they're out of work, tend to become abusive.

My Republican friends are lamenting reconciliation. But I would recommend for them to go back and look at history.

Republicans cannot be trusted to end the culture of corruption,

Simply put, music can heal people.

Social Security is not in crisis. It's a crisis the president's created, period.

The (Iraq) war can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically, and the president needs to come to that realization,

The man's father is a wonderful human being. I think this guy is a loser.

The modern day anarchists known as the Tea Party, they believe in no government.

The president is now having to deal with a Congress. He's never had to do that before. The president in the past, he has just done whatever he wanted. He had a big rubberstamp here up on Capitol Hill, whatever he wanted, they stamped OK. That's not the way it is now.

The Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer. The current justices have all been chosen from the lower federal courts. A nominee with relevant non-judicial experience would bring a different and useful perspective to the court.

The threat to change Senate rules is a raw abuse of power and will destroy the very checks and balances our founding fathers put in place to prevent absolute power by any one branch of government,

There is no entity in the world that controls our lives more than the Federal Reserve System

There is no more important task in Washington than cleaning up the culture of corruption. Yet the president - whose White House has become the cradle of Republican corruption - is not taking responsibility for the costs of that corruption.

There was not a word of apology, not a word of explanation to the American people, ... The president's going to have to get a touch of reality.

They say you can never step in the same river twice. New water flows in, replacing the old and continually renewing the river. The Senate is the same.

They've lost their minds.

This war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything.

We all know if we change the bill, it's gone.

We in the Senate refer to Sen. Gillibrand as the hottest member.

We must stop the Tea Party before the United States Senate falls into the hands of extremists and ideologues who leave no room for reason or compromise, who dont recognize common ground even when theyre standing on it.

We're going to hear an earful, but it's going to be an earful of wonderment and happiness that people waited for for a long time.

You know with a bully you cannot let them slap you around, because they slap you around today, they slap you five or six times tomorrow. We are not going to be bullied.

It's been obvious that [Republicans]'re doing everything they can to make [Obama] fail. And I hope, I hope - and I say this seriously - I hope that's based on substance and not the fact that he's African-American.

Now remember, we've already done more than a billion dollars worth of cuts. We've already done that. So we need to get some credit for that.

They're nothing more than domestic terrorists.