Marion Barry Quotes

Marion Barry gives plain-spoken, gritty takes on power, politics and leadership.

40 quotes

1. Goddamn bitch set me up!

2. Outside of the killings, DC has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.

3. They made all this up to justify questioning me. It's all made up. I don't know what happened. Whatever they say was all made up.

4. There is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys that I am their friend.

5. People have criticized me because my security detail is larger than the president's. But you must ask yourself: are there more people who want to kill me than who want to kill the president? I can assure you there are.

6. What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because it deems it necessary?

7. I am a great mayor. I am an upstanding Christian man. I am an intelligent man. I am a deeply educated man. I am a humble man.

8. I am one of those mayors whose management style is to allow free and unlimited debate, to a point.

9. The laws of this city are clearly racist. All laws are racist. The law of gravity is racist.

10. I am Mayor For Life.

11. The brave men who died in Vietnam, more than 100% of which were black, were the ultimate sacrifice.

12. I promise you a police car on every sidewalk.

13. I am clearly more popular than Reagan. I am in my third term. Where's Reagan? Gone after two! Defeated by George Bush and Michael Dukakis no less.

14. I am making this trip to Africa because Washington is an international city, just like Tokyo, Nigeria or Israel. As mayor, I am an international symbol. Can you deny that to Africa?

15. My greatest work comes in the community.

16. We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up business and dirty shops. They ought to go.

17. What dragged me down was not being mayor - it was insecurity, the need to be accepted by everyone, the pleasure syndrome. That's what brought me down.

18. This is not a sham, not a game. This is the real stuff.

19. And no offense, but let’s grow our own teachers, let’s grow our own nurses—and so that we don’t have to be scrounging around in our community clinics and other kinds of places—having to hire people from somewhere else.

20. I read a funny story about how the Republicans freed the slaves. The Republicans are the ones who created slavery by law in the 1600's. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and he was not a Republican.

21. I have to admit I didn't do as much as I should have back when I was mayor, but now we're getting it done. It's not where you've been but where you're going.

22. When you know more, you can do more.

23. The contagious people of Washington have stood firm against diversity during this long period of increment weather.

24. Jesse ain't running nothin' but his mouth.

25. My personal view is very simple: What happens in your bedroom, it's up to you. If you want to use gay marriage as an affectionate kind of thing you're doing, do it.

26. If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very low crime rate.

27. People blame me because these water mains break, but I ask you, if the water mains didn't break, would it be my responsibility to fix them then? WOULD IT!?!

28. Our neighbors in Virginia are just as responsible for these killings as the criminals are because they won't pass strong gun [control] legislation.

29. Aside from the murders, DC has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.

30. There are two kinds of truth. There are real truths, and there are made up truths.

31. Everybody in life has something that they get knocked down on. The object lesson here is not that you get knocked down - it is that you get up.

32. In Washington, I have worked hard for the people, and I've been loved by the people.

33. I had my bad times. But the good news is that every time this has happened I've taken full responsibility for it. I don't try to duck it, I don't try to dodge it, I don't try to bullshit about it. Truth crushed to the ground will rise again. And that's what my life has been about.

34. Love is very fleeting with me. I don't know why.

35. Who can better help our city recover than someone who himself has gone through recovery?

36. Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.

37. Washington, D.C., had never seen my style of politics.

38. I love serving people. I love helping people empower themselves.

39. Why should blacks feel elated about seeing men walk on the moon when millions of poor blacks and whites don't have enough money to buy food to eat on earth?

40. White folks may let you in their country clubs to play golf, invite you out to dinner, take you out to play tennis, but when it comes to dividing up the money, that's a whole 'nother story.