Larry Speakes Quotes

Rules for a White House Spokesman: No. 1 is always tell the truth. I've got only one currency, that's the truth. There are 10,000 ways to say "no comment," and I've used 9,999 of them. The second rule is don't be afraid to say, "I don't know." You may look dumb, but if you don't know you can't give them hot air because it always shows on your face.

Larry Speakes

• Rules
• White House
• Spokesman

I would dodge, not lie, in the national interest.

Larry Speakes

• Interest
• Lie
• National

Those who talk don't know what is going on and those who know what is going on won't talk.

Larry Speakes

• Know
• Talk
• Going

You don't tell us how to stage the news and we don't tell you how to cover it.

Larry Speakes

• You
• Stage
• News

Being a press secretary is like learning to type: You're hunting and pecking for a while and then you find yourself doing the touch system and don't realize it. You're speaking for the president without ever having to go to him.

Larry Speakes

• Learning
• Yourself
• Hunting

...absolutely no alert measures ... are necessary at this time or contemplated.

Larry Speakes

• Time
• Measures
• Alert

If you tell the same story five times, it's true.

Larry Speakes

• True
• Story
• Times

When, at the age of seven, he blew up the family truck by dropping a match down the gas tank, we should have known he'd grow up to make his living hurling verbal firebombs at presidents.

Larry Speakes

• President
• Living
• Verbal

Ol' Shoot from the Lip," we call him.

Larry Speakes

• Shoot
• Lip

This job has probably got the most screwing-up potential in the world.

Larry Speakes

• World
• Job
• Potential