Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right.
Mario Cuomo

I am a trial lawyer. Matilda says that at dinner on a good day I sound like an affidavit.
Mario Cuomo

I have no plans, and no plans to plan.
Mario Cuomo

I said I didn't want to run for president. I didn't ask you to believe me.
Mario Cuomo

I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in fifty years what my father taught me by example in one week.
Mario Cuomo

If you can manipulate news, a judge can manipulate the law. A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail, a smart accountant can keep a thief from paying taxes, a smart reporter could ruin your reputation- unfairly.
Mario Cuomo

The mugger who is arrested is back on the street before the police officer, but the person mugged may not be back on the street for a long time, if ever.
Mario Cuomo

The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us.
Mario Cuomo

There are few things more amusing in the world of politics than watching moderate Republicans charging to the right in pursuit of greater glory.
Mario Cuomo

We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things. And we'll do it not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that bring people to their senses.
Mario Cuomo


You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
Mario Cuomo

You want calamities? What about the Ice Age?
Mario Cuomo