Betty Ford Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

Lying in the hospital, thinking of all those women going for cancer checkups because of me, I'd come to recognize more clearly the power of the woman in the White House. Not my power, but the power of the position, a power which could be used to help.

Betty Ford
It's always been my feeling that God lends you your children until they're about eighteen years old. If you haven't made your points with them by then, it's too late.

Betty Ford
My makeup wasn't smeared, I wasn't disheveled, I behaved politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?

Betty Ford
What man could afford to pay for all the things a wife does, when she's a cook, a mistress, a chauffeur, a nurse, a baby-sitter? But because of this, I feel women ought to have equal rights, equal Social Security, equal opportunities for education, an equal chance to establish credit.

Betty Ford
A housewife deserves to be honored as much as a woman who earns her living in the marketplace. I consider bringing up children a responsible job. In fact, being a good housewife seems to me a much tougher job than going to the office and getting paid for it.

Betty Ford
I think it wasn't so much that the White House altered me in any essential way as that I found the resources with which to respond to a series of challenges. You never know what you can do until you have to do it. In the beginning, it was like going to a party you're terrified of, and finding out to your amazement that you're having a good time.

Betty Ford
Friends aren't any more important than breath or blood to a high school senior.

Betty Ford
For 14 years, I'd been on medication for the pinched nerve, the arthritis, the muscle spasms in my neck, and I'd lost my tolerance for pills. If I had a single drink, the alcohol, on top of the pills, would make me groggy.

Betty Ford
I never felt hopelessly mutilated. After all, Jerry and I had been married a good many years and our love had proved itself. I had no reason to doubt my husband. If he'd lost a leg, I wouldn't have deserted him, and I knew he wouldn't desert me because I was unfortunate enough to have had a mastectomy. Neither of us can walk away from the other.

Betty Ford
I've learned a lot about myself. Most of it is all right. When I add up the pluses and subtract the minuses, I still come out pretty well.

Betty Ford
The words cut through me, pinned me to the floor. I felt as though I were taking the oath with him, promising to dedicate my own life to the service of my country. I was the wife of the President of the United States. What an astonishing place for Elizabeth Ann Bloomer to have come to.

Betty Ford
Maybe alcohol picks you up a little bit, but it sure lets you down in a hurry.

Betty Ford
On one hand, I loved being 'the wife of'; on the other hand, I was convinced that the more important Jerry became, the less important I became.

Betty Ford
I entered Long Beach to rid myself of dependence on drugs. Even now, I think staying off medication will be harder for me than staying off liquor because I have pain which comes often. For the present, I seem to be dealing with it. It's mind over matter a lot.

Betty Ford
When I say we've had an ideal marriage, I'm not just talking about physical attraction, which I can imagine can wear pretty thin if it's all a couple has built on. We've had that and a whole lot more.

Betty Ford
When he first told me he was going to run for Congress, I didn't know what running for Congress meant. I was very unprepared to be a political wife, but I didn't worry because I really didn't think he was going to win. At that time, only old men went to Congress.

Betty Ford
I figured, okay, I'll move to the White House, do the best I can, and if they don't like it, they can kick me out. But they can't make me be somebody I'm not.

Betty Ford
You can make it, but it's easier if you don't have to do it alone.

Betty Ford
I hadn't wanted Jerry to be president, but I had long since accepted his decision to run. You plan your life one way, it goes another. When the time came, I felt he would be the best man for the job, and I was willing to take on four more years in the White House.

Betty Ford