Donna Shalala Quotations

Higher education is one of few areas where this country competes with the rest of the world and wins. The best of American higher education outstrips any in the world. Look where the rest of the world goes for higher education, for graduate degrees. They come here.

Sex education has to do with what's in people's head.

The dog doesn't know the difference between Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, so I have to walk the dog early those days too.

But for me, it is when a student has died. I find the death of a young person the most difficult and painful of times. To explain it to other young people, to see a bright future snuffed out, is just awful. I am haunted by those deaths.

Our young people are out on the streets looking for parties, a place to dance, looking for a scene. No institutions are providing them with alternatives, fun things to do that don't necessarily have alcohol at the center.

Every year, I am reminded of the kids who aren't in the freshman class and aren't graduating. I remember every single one of them. That is the worst of times for me, to see the future snuffed out.

You can't have a university without having free speech, even though at times it makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to hear controversial ideas on college campuses, they're not going to hear them in America. I believe it's part of their education.

In fairy tales, the children are saved by caring adults. We need more caring adults in the lives of our children.

We are living longer, and we need to live better.

I am interested in getting people to use the healthcare system at the right time, getting them to see the doctor early enough, before a small health problem turns serious.

The government is fully capable of delivering services. Even complex services.

I have to admit, in January and February I was in an absolute fuzz. I had no one on board. It wasn't that I didn't know what I was doing, but we didn't have all the pieces put together.

I'm pretty disciplined and am almost always on schedule.

Sure, it is apparent that presidents are looking at polls, but they are also stepping up on issues. President Clinton stepped up on tobacco. He shaped the polls on the tobacco issue.

You go to college not only for the latest knowledge but also to meet people from different backgrounds. That's the genius of the American higher-education system compared with the Europeans'. We don't simply skim the elite.

Asking the government to help you for short periods of time is different than asking the government to take care of you for the rest of your life.

I've spent my whole life with people underestimating me.

The economic dimension is very clear. I was at a dinner party, a mother got up, who's a very distinguished scientist, and said she had to get home and help her daughter with her homework. The two waiters, their faces changed. They were working their second jobs, they couldn't get home to help their kids with homework.

What you really remember at the beginning was that you have to throw a budget together. We made some terrible mistakes at the beginning in my own budget that took us at least a year to catch up on.

I think anyone that thought that we were coming in as a bunch of liberal Democrats to deliver more large-scale social programs was nuts. I sure didn't expect it.

We know the parental support, community support, makes a difference. It's not just the metrics of testing and putting pressure on the schools and on the teachers.

I get to work at about 7:30 or 8 unless I have a breakfast meeting.

I would argue that we have a generation of young people, particularly minorities, who are no longer putting up with the kinds of things their parents put up with. They're much more self-confident. It's no longer acceptable to make fun of people because of race or sex. But it has always been present in American society.

I bring other constituencies - I also have ties to minority communities. And obviously, to the world of world-class research universities. So I can bring some constituencies that I'm used to working with.

I try to deal with my serious reading before work.

I think President Bush tried to step up on Social Security even though the polls showed that was unpopular. He has not been successful and backed off, but I admire people who take on big problems.

The other thing is, I'm one of the handful of people they have that actually knows how to run something, that's an experienced administrator.

The possible slowdown of illicit drug use among young people is encouraging, even though rates of use remain unacceptably high. All of us, especially parents and teachers, need to redouble our efforts

We believe we should keep going. We're telling a story about excellence, about going from being very good to extraordinary.

This will not be as generous as people think, ... Face the Nation.

What we're doing is protecting elderly disabled immigrants in nursing homes, ... They're not part of the welfare reform debate. The welfare reform debate is about moving people from welfare to work.

We're actually asking you to be the eyes and ears of the Medicare system,

There are thousands of people each day whose lives and the quality of their health care are affected because we do not have national legislation that sets standards and establishes a set of rules that would ensure that they get quality care, ... That's more than frustrating -- that's unacceptable.

Sending a tough message against drugs, particularly to young people, is a little like sending a message into deep space, ... The message goes out and then you wait a year or more to find out if it's been heard.

She has the right stuff, ... And having the right stuff is not something that is exclusive to one chromosome or another.

She actually started the women's network in this town. Jodie brought all the women together from the Carter administration in her home.

She actually started the women's network in this town,

No one believed that Wisconsin's program could be restored to great eminence, ... Barry did it with class and energy and skill.

I have always hired people of different ages. Young people and older people. People in their 70s and in their 20s. People who are fully capable of talking back to me.

He went from being a governor to being a president, from being someone who thought that perhaps states could do almost everything to someone that wanted to make sure that, when we did devolve power to the states, that opportunities didn't differ from one state to another.

He's your dream candidate for president of the United States, ... He's a moral man, an intellectual. He thinks through issues, he struggles. He shows the complexity of decision-making in the White House.

What we would not want to do is ... take away health insurance for adults for which there is no insurance market. If you're 65 years old, what's the market for health insurance?

Having plain English information, with uniform labels, is very important for over-the-counter drugs,

Helene was not afraid to go into a brothel, nor was she afraid to invest U.S. resources in AIDS at the ends of the Earth, to give actual hope.

(President Bill Clinton) believes that we can get comprehensive legislation this year, with or without (tobacco companies), ... Meet The Press.

Most of the calories in a healthy diet should come from fruits, vegetables and grain products. That recommendation makes it even more critical for government and industry to work together to ensure that fresh produce is wholesome and safe.

Most managed care companies want to give every piece of information,

Most of all, our health care professionals need to understand that federal law has not changed, that it continues to be illegal in the United States to prescribe marijuana.

will inform public policy at the state and national levels.

Well, it took everybody a while to build relationships of trust, whether it was the White House staff with the cabinet agencies.

We must not lose sight of the fact that it will take further action by public health officials and local communities to reduce the health effects attributed to tobacco use,

Today we have good news about America's health,

We're not talking about mandatory marathons or about Cal Ripken-style workouts,

We're losing ground in the battle to protect our children,

We need to drive down requirements for the schools. In the 19th century, we increased the quality of the schools by higher education saying, 'You can't come in unless you have these skills, unless you've taken these courses.' We did that in Wisconsin when I was there, it helped to transform the secondary school system.

You don't want to destroy the energy that comes out of a campaign.

We have to mainstream everybody. No matter what their circumstances when they were growing up. Part of that is knowing that after they're finished with school, everybody in this country gets up and goes to work.

In every community, whether large or small, there are people who lead in their community in easy and difficult times.

I'll be one of the spokespeople, one of the people who sells the Administration's plans.

Sometimes I'll trust my gut more than my head. Logical information might lead me in one direction and my feelings in another. Whereas I would have followed my head ten years ago, now I'm as likely or more likely to go with my gut feeling. It's ironic - you'd think the opposite would be true as you move to the top but it's not.

I compensate for big risks by always doing my homework and being well-prepared. I can take on larger risks by reducing the overall risk.

By putting people around me who will calm me down and slow me down and make sure I work through an issue.

I have long ties to the women's community.

We can't afford as a nation - not because of money but because of our social fabric - to have large numbers of people who are not working.

We have not yet concluded that needle-exchange programs do not encourage drug use.

Fear drives you and makes you better.

We call upon you to make an immediate determination and to allow the local use of federal funds for needle exchange programs as part of a comprehensive HIV prevention program. To do anything less would be an abdication of your responsibilities.

We can't wait for everybody in this country to get good health insurance, ... When you really want to close a health care gap and you do not have a single health care system, you go to every part of the country and have everybody pull in the same direction.

We're moving very rapidly into quality measures, so that Americans can control their own health care and have a better sense of which plan will provide them with quality health care,

We want to do everything as possible to help our community and to help these young people stay on track with their plans for a college education. It's the right thing to do,

Every day that goes by means more needless new infections and more human suffering,

a step forward in the battle for our children's health and our nation's future.

at this moment, we don't need a summit.

Comprehensive protection of personal medical records is what Congress called for in the law, and it's what American patients and their providers want and need,

Each day, 10 children and teens are killed by firearms, and that is 10 too many, ... However, it is a significant decrease from four years earlier. This indicates that violence prevention efforts are showing results.

The National Institutes of Health will continue to review the claims about the possible benefit of smoked marijuana for a small number of indications,

Africa, Asia, every country in the world, they were all in denial. The health ministers kept assuring us they had everything under control. (Gayle) kept pushing . . . to get programs, strengthen the private sector, the public sector. She just never gave up.

This is a significant moment in women's history, but also in American history,

This early report is very promising and shows that we are making progress in moving parents on welfare into jobs or giving them the work skills they need to get a job,

It's our responsibility as caring adults in this country to protect our children,

It's coaches. It's people that are involved in kids' lives at every level, and it's supporting their parents. Their parents need better jobs. So that they can help them with their homework and don't have to work two jobs.

They will help Americans to cut through all the fads and all the myths concerning our diets,

The new century brings new challenges and opportunities to improve the health of everyone in the United States, ... People not only want to live a long life, but they also want to enjoy a healthy life.

I must have helped 15 people get in the program.

Illicit drug use fell from 11.4 percent (in 1997) to 9.9 percent (in 1998) among young people aged 12-17, a statistically significant decline, ... while illicit drug use overall remained flat.

In too many cases, we are missing opportunities to save people simply because families are never contacted and donation is never even considered as an option,

But I have a driver, so I can return calls while I'm in the car.

How could you not see how important you were to us?

I am on record as being opposed to a football playoff, ... and I have not changed my mind.

All kinds of people are getting very sick because they're taking two kinds of drugs they shouldn't take together, for instance, ... It's a particular problem for senior citizens who are having trouble reading the fine print.

The current organ allocation system is unfair to the patients, ... You can wait literally 500 days in one part of the country, and walk off a golf course and get a liver in another part of the country.

All of those women would say they stand on the shoulders of Mrs. King. So do the rest of us, not just women of color.