• This is the Dolly Parton line, 'find out who you are, and do it on purpose.'
• Source: Governing   |   Nation   |   June 19, 2013
• Bruce Katz, co-author of "The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros are Fixing our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy," on how the economic structures of metro areas are really different from each other.

• I realized we’re not making any money farming, so why not sell the water to the oil companies?
• Source: AP/Politico   |   June 18, 2013
• West Texas cotton farmer Charlie Smith, who plans to sell some of the groundwater beneath his fields to drillers, because it isn’t enough to irrigate his lands. His fields were declared to be in a drought disaster area this year by the USDA.

• You know and I know that bond is just a four-letter word for tax.
• Source: The Sacramento Bee   |   June 17, 2013
• California assemblyman Don Wagner, R-Irvine, on a bill passed by the legislature that asks voters to lower the voter-approval threshold necessary for a local government to incur bonded indebtedness for certain public improvements.

• There's been too little time. The ink hasn’t dried in terms of rewriting our future.
• Source: Governing   |   Cuyahoga County, Ohio   |   June 14, 2013
• Chris Ronayne, a potential candidate for county executive, on the leadership turnaround that's happened in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, after years of cronyism, bribery and corruption.

• It’s like doctors saying, ‘we’re not going to treat the cancer until the symptoms disappear.'
• Source: Twitter   |   Nation   |   June 13, 2013
• Attorney Clint Bolick speaking at a Cato Institute event about why immigration reform can’t wait for increased border security. Bolick and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush co-wrote "Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution."

• It sounds like a state agency and it acts like a state agency, so I'm not sure why it's not a state agency.
• Source: Governing   |   Ohio   |   June 12, 2013
• Former Virginia State Auditor Walter Kucharski, referring to JobsOhio, a non-profit economic development firm created by the legislature that's considered a private entity and Gov. John Kasich doesn't want audited.

• You get a letter like that, you probably put it in the garbage can.
• Source: Miami Herald   |   June 11, 2013
• Connecticut Commissioner of Economic Development Catherine Smith, referring to letters that Florida Gov. Rick Scott wrote to business leaders in her state sharply criticizing life there in an effort to get them to relocate to Florida.

• It’s kind of saying to anybody who comes into the area: We are armed.
• Source: Governing   |   Nucla, Colo.   |   June 10, 2013
• Richard Craig, a town board trustee in Nucla, Colo., which requires residents to own guns. Nelson, Ga., has a similar ordinance that's being challenged in court as unconstitutional.
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• You could adequately say there's nothing normal about our weather.
• Source: Governing   |   Oklahoma   |   June 7, 2013
• Oklahoma state Climatologist Renee McPherson discussing the state's weather patterns, which often include extremely dry summers, very wet winters and tornadoes.

• Louis Brandeis used to talk about states as the laboratories of democracy, but that laboratory doesn’t function very well if there’s no scientist operating in it.
• Source: Governing   |   Nation   |   June 6, 2013
• Shelley Metzenbaum, president of The Volcker Alliance, talking about the federal role in facilitating learning.

• Detroit’s never been an easy sell – God no — but it sure is a lot better than it was in 1984 when I got started in this business.
• Source: Governing   |   Detroit   |   June 5, 2013
• George W. Jackson, Jr., president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, on the difficulties of attracting outside investment and new jobs to the troubled city.

• Taking part in a production, rather than actual work, was not in our interest.
• Source: The New York Times   |   Nevada   |   June 4, 2013
• Nevada lobbyist Billy Vassiliadis, who dropped out of an effort to pass universal gun background checks in Nevada this year because he thought it was unwinnable.

• It's hypocritical that the legislature and governor say they don't want tax increases but are pushing a bill through the back door that would require a tax increase on the local level.
• Source: Tampa Bay Times   |   Florida   |   June 3, 2013
• Florida state Rep. Mike Fasano, on the pension bill the legislature passed and Gov. Rick Scott signed that forces counties to contribute $264 million more to the state's pension system.

• What does this mean, that up until 17 you're fine to be in the Boy Scouts but on midnight of your 18th birthday you turn into a pedophile or a predator?
• Source: The Sacramento Bee   |   California   |   May 31, 2013
• California state Sen. Ricardo Lara, on the Boy Scouts of America policy that allows openly gay boy scouts but not gay adult leaders. On Wednesday, the state Senate approved a bill to revoke the organization's nonprofit status.

• We've become a very snobby society.
• Source: Twitter   |   Georgia   |   May 30, 2013
• Nancy Denson, mayor of Athens, Ga., speaking at Governing's Georgia Leadership forum, on the belief that everyone needs to go to college.