I am a Ford, not a Lincoln." (On becoming vice president, December 1973)

He's the one guy who, among modern vice presidents, is so aloof and so remote from ever making public statements and being in the public eye, even in a functionary capacity.

A vice is a failure of desire.

It can go on and on, or someone must write 'The End' to it. I have concluded that only I can do that. And if I can, I must.(Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon for Watergate)

[That, in part, is why the Constitution's framers gave justices life tenure - to enable them to rule wherever the law and the Constitution led them, without obligation or fear of political reprisal. Former Republican president Gerald Ford recently paid tribute to John Paul Stevens , his only appointee to the Supreme Court, who is also far more liberal than Republicans expected.] He has served his nation well, ... with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns.

I'll know I'm getting better at golf because I'm hitting fewer spectators.