“Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat. That’s right, but that’s only in wrestling.”
Ventura talking to voters at the Minnesota State Fair during his 1998 campaign

“You hear candidates say, ‘Oh, I'm a wasted vote.’ I find that to be utterly pompous, arrogant.”
Ventura, again at the State Fair

“I believe it was 1981 that Adrian (Adonis) and I first sold out the Civic Center in St. Paul and you’re still cheering me. Only in ’81 it was, ‘Jesse sucks!’”
Ventura on election night

“I think it’s one thing if you want to dally outside your marriage if you go to a motel room. But I have a big problem when it’s being done right in the White House.”
Ventura on “Meet the Press” talking about the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal

“Take your shirt off, Tim. Let’s see what you got.”
Ventura on “Meet the Press” after Tim Russert asks if he can be Tim “The Body” Russert now that Ventura now calls himself Jesse “The Mind.”

“My first act? Kick my feet up on a chair and smoke a stogie.”
Responding to a question about the first thing he’ll do as governor

“I’m very proud of my wrestling past. I would rather be a wrestler than a career politician.”
Speaking to high school students a month after his election

“You know, if you’re going to criticize my singing feel free. You criticize everything else I do.”
Responding to a reporter who joked about Ventura’s singing at the Inaugural celebration

“I guess I’d say that I didn’t realize that Republicans spent so much time watching wrestling. Maybe they oughta spend more time on something else.”
Responding to comment a Republican politician that Ventura's first budget proposal was similar to an over-hyped, pay-per-view wrestling match

“A single parent? I don’t want to sound hardcore, but why did you become a single parent?”
Ventura confronting a student protesting for more financial aid on steps of State Capitol

“The day after the election we all looked at each other and said, ‘Oh my God! What do we do now?’ We didn’t know.”
Speech to National Press Club in Washington

“We can’t legislate against every stupid thing people will do and yet the temptation is there to try time and time again. . . . I stand before you as governor willing to say what too many politicians at all levels of government have been scared to say: The free ride is over!”
1999 State of the State speech

“In ‘Predator’ I said ‘I don’t have time to bleed.’ As governor, I don’t have time for criticism.”
Ventura in Hollywood responding to criticism that his trip to drum up movie business for Minnesota was a taxpayer-paid junket

“There’s a reference in the book about the night I lost my virginity. The girl was older than me and she wasn’t a virgin. So tell me, who got seduced?”
Ventura responding to reporters about controversial revelations in his autobiography

“I said make me an offer and she said, ‘How ’bout a trick and ten dollars?’ I did it!”
Ventura in a speech at the Nixon Library joking about his trip to Nevada brothel he describes in his autobiography

“That’s for your old man you little bastard!”
Ventura after he threw Shane McMahon (son of WWF promoter Vince McMahon) out of the wrestling ring at SummerSlam where Ventura served as guest referee at Target Center

“Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers.”
Ventura in Playboy

“My point is this. Is there any of us talking here that hasn’t gone out and had sex in a place we’re not supposed to?”
Ventura on KFAN Radio defending his chief of staff after he’s been cited for indecent conduct in a health club steam room

“They want to come after me? Bring it on! Bring it on!”
Ventura after legislators begin hearings about his XFL football job

“Let’s face it, I had to be careful tonight...Because if I wasn’t a bit careful, I know my local media in Minnesota would have hung me up by my thumbs.”
Ventura at a press conference after his first game broadcast for the XFL

“Congratulations for having a sense of humor for those that do. And for those that don’t, go stick your head in the mud.”
Ventura at a news conference after seeing some photographers and reporters wearing his new “Media Jackal” press badges

“Until you’ve hunted man, you haven’t hunted yet.”
Ventura in an interview with Minneapolis Star Tribune responding to criticism of his handling of hunting and fishing issues in Minnesota

“I asked him the most important question, I think, that you could ask him--if he’d ever seen Caddyshack.”
Ventura’s account of his private meeting with the Dalai Lama

“These people here in New York have orphan children today, and I take great offense to anyone who would question why I’m out here...How dare them!”
Ventura responding to criticism of his trip to Ground Zero by striking Minnesota state employees

“If the media knows (my schedule) so does the terrorist and Bin Laden.”
Ventura explaining why he stopped publishing his public schedule after September 11th

“It’s asinine. These people did not get the wealth they have being stupid.”
Ventura’s testimony before Congress about the financial plight of baseball owners

“If I get beat for telling the truth then I don’t want the job anymore.”
After proposing to raise taxes after promising not to during his 1998 campaign

“I plan to leave public service forever and wave goodbye.”
Ventura announcing his decision not to run for a second term