Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, when I got the message of Mr. Pascrell's death, it was, like, that can't be. He was just that type of person that when you looked at him every day, he embodied everything that this Chamber stands for. Paterson, New Jersey, could not have had a better champion than Bill Pascrell because they were one and the same. He never, ever changed his mind on anything because he never made up his mind casually. He knew who he was. He knew where he was from. He knew what he stood for, and he knew everything about the people he represented. When you first get here, you don't know anybody, but I remember walking down the hall and saw this person being interviewed. I said: Who is this guy? They said: That is Bill Paterson--I mean, Bill Pascrell. Well, it is the same thing: Bill Paterson, Bill Pascrell. I said: He is something else. Then I got a chance to serve on the same committee as he did. I don't think you could find a finer example of what it means to be a Representative of a certain place at a certain time, and he embodied it in every simple way you could possibly do it. As we go through life, there are people you are never going to forget. And as long as one of us is alive, we are never going to forget Bill Paterson--I keep calling him Paterson--Bill Pascrell--because I am just so used to him talking about Paterson all the time. Every time I came into committee--Mr. Neal and I were talking about this--the first thing he would ask me is: ``Hey, Kell, how is your wife?…”