Top 120 Chris Matthews Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The more failure you can accept, the greater your chance of success.”

— Chris Matthews

52. “Republicans woke up Sunday with an undeniable reality. Donald Trump’s the clear front-runner now for their party’s nomination. Trump, celebrated, of course, his big win in South Carolina.”

— Chris Matthews

53. “All Hollywood endings – the bad endings have to be the bad guys to be falling about 50 stories to his death and you have to see his eyeballs as he goes to his doom.”

— Chris Matthews

54. “It doesn’t serve an American interest. It really doesn’t really serve Israeli interests – it serves the interests of the political party that’s getting the votes of the settlers on the West Bank.”

— Chris Matthews

55. “I truly believe that America’s greatness and billions and billions of dollars of our wealth flows away because China doesn’t treat us fairly.”

— Chris Matthews

56. “I tell my staff, we’re riding a tour bus around, and we’re going to stop and look at some weird stuff – but we’re taking our viewers around safely. They’re just looking out the window at it. I’m trying to create a sense of comfort for my center audience.”

— Chris Matthews

57. “Eleanor Roosevelt said, always do what you’re afraid to do.”

— Chris Matthews

58. “I think the Clintons are going to make their decision based on the merits. And their focus, like mine, is on middle class jobs. We’re in a different world than 1994. The China we dealt with in 1994 is a lot different than the China today in 2015.”

— Chris Matthews

59. “Someone needs to talk sense to the president. But these people are not world travelers. This president, much as I like him, had all the opportunities in the world.”

— Chris Matthews

60. “Nothing is as important as the biggest day in your life.”

— Chris Matthews

61. “The overall campaign launch is designed to break through the clutter and reach out to consumers. At the end of the day, consumers are the ones who benefit from the convenience and value never before seen in a free checking account.”

— Chris Matthews

62. “I think in places like Pennsylvania, there’s folks who want our next president to talk like a hawk, but fly like a dove.”

— Chris Matthews

63. “Pope John Paul II is the great. Only two other popes had that title. Does that suggest there is going to be a move for canonization?”

— Chris Matthews

64. “Once having said no to Donald Trump, Mitt Romney can’t go back and say, I changed my mind, I’m bowing to the pressure from you.”

— Chris Matthews

65. “I mean, if somebody said to me, junior year of college, you can go anywhere, your old man’s paying for it, I’d have been gone in a flash. But I had to work. Every summer my mother would say, ‘Get that job and hold on to it until August 30.’”

— Chris Matthews

66. “Bernie Sanders even reminded me of the way I felt at parties over the years. You go to a party, you don’t know anybody, you sort of wander around. You hold a drink in your hand, you don’t know what to do. This poor guy Bernie, he was at a loss with this group of people he didn’t know.”

— Chris Matthews

67. “Isn’t Hollywood – and I love movies – a lot of it about a big lie?”

— Chris Matthews

68. “Being a little older is not going to win election. Being a little younger might, especially if the older candidates, Hillary Clinton included, can’t make the case that they have learned something that the younger crowd doesn’t know.”

— Chris Matthews

69. “We’ve always had a dual role in the region – friend of Israel, and honest broker. We’ve given up the honest broker role completely.”

— Chris Matthews

70. “In the world of late-night comics, Letterman made us feel any hometown boy from Indianapolis could poke fun at celebrities and politicians and do it right to their faces.”

— Chris Matthews

71. “Rush Limbaugh is beginning to look more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come. Not yet, but we’ll be there to watch.”

— Chris Matthews

72. “Natural-born American means you don’t have to be naturalized. You were born to an American mother, like President Obama, no matter where you were born.”

— Chris Matthews

73. “The big lie is that the people who make a lot of money were the only ones that worked hard.”

— Chris Matthews

74. “I’m reading Joe Eszterhas biography; it’s fabulous. Every time he made a movie, he fought with the director or the producer over the ending.”

— Chris Matthews

75. “The whole reason we organize grassroots is, we think any politician that gets elected needs to be held accountable 365 days a year.”

— Chris Matthews

76. “Everything he’s done is clean as a whistle. He’s never not only broken any law, he’s never done anything wrong.”

— Chris Matthews

77. “The holy father John Paul II made a profound impact wherever he went. And, of course, his trip to Boston was one of the earliest ones. But I must say every time that I met the holy father and mentioned Boston, he would immediately say, rain. So, it made quite an impact on him, too.”

— Chris Matthews

78. “What happens to conservatives when they get near the White House? How come they only seem to be talking the good talk at, say, the Senate level, when they don’t have to run the show?”

— Chris Matthews

79. “I’m surprised people are that hopeful about what government can do, because if you believe in socialism, society can run a pretty decent government, it can provide services, it can regulate the economy effectively.”

— Chris Matthews

80. “In politics, nothing good ever comes from the unexpected.”

— Chris Matthews

81. “I never know what all of these guys are thinking, but Marco Rubio sounded desperate, like, We’ve got a leak in the dike, we got to stop this thing.”

— Chris Matthews

82. “In light of Jeb Bush’s recent fumbles on Iraq, maybe the Clinton campaign is making the smart move here by not saying.”

— Chris Matthews

83. “I think, like Ronald Reagan, in another way, in a secular way, John Paul II was a great communicator, but he was also a man of deep conviction.”

— Chris Matthews

84. “I used to love hand raising.”

— Chris Matthews

85. “A new poll out taken by a Republican group that shows most Democrats prefer socialism to capitalism. Those terms don’t mean what they did maybe 40, 50 years ago.”

— Chris Matthews

86. “Most politicians have to find a way past that allergy. They have to find a way to go door to door, person to person, or else they don’t win.”

— Chris Matthews

87. “Sarah Palin is an empty vessel ready to be filled by ideology that she doesn’t even understand, and that is really scary. Nothing is more frightening than an empty vessel in power.”

— Chris Matthews

88. “Public opinion aside, it will be up to the future pope to continue John Paul II’s journey to sainthood. Many of the late pope’s followers believe he is already there.”

— Chris Matthews

89. “It’s not such a bad idea, at any time, to be seen as FIGHTING, especially when you might just win.”

— Chris Matthews

90. “My audience is much more center right, or centrist.”

— Chris Matthews

91. “Stop calling me communist. Stop calling the rest of us communists. You’ve got to stand up for what you believe should be the American government’s spirit, not what you’re just attacking people’s credibility.”

— Chris Matthews

92. “And on the war, I think my numbers would be a lot higher if I were out there beating the drum for this war. In fact, I don’t think it, I know it. But I can’t be for the war.”

— Chris Matthews

93. “The last person to be beatified by Pope John Paul II was Mother Teresa of Calcutta in 2003.”

— Chris Matthews

94. “Pope John Paul II spoke with a lot of clarity and consistency. But he always spoke with immense compassion. He’s the one who said the best way to love somebody is to tell them the truth. So, he did that well.”

— Chris Matthews

95. “I am no longer going to go along with this idea that we’re going to keep spending and borrowing and taking over and raising taxes, that I’m going to do everything I can to change things.”

— Chris Matthews

96. “The reason I had unfaithfulness in one of my marriages is because I was too patriotic.”

— Chris Matthews

97. “Even if you’re not a Catholic, even if you’re not a Christian, in fact even if you have no religious faith at all, what people could see in Pope John Paul was a man of true and profound spiritual faith.”

— Chris Matthews

98. “Jeb Bush has being slammed by his own party for a very messy response to questions about his brother’s war in Iraq. He should have been ready for this one.”

— Chris Matthews

99. “If you think what you see on TV is prejudiced, it is. Follow your instincts.”

— Chris Matthews

100. “The Indians are still winning the battle against the white men, but sooner or later, the white guy will win.”

— Chris Matthews