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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Gary Locke Quotes

We’ve come a long way since Nixon’s first visit to China, or Carter’s reestablishment of diplomatic relations.

– Gary Locke

On top of my to-do list in preparing for Beijing is ‘On China’ by Henry Kissinger, who has had firsthand experience with every top Chinese leader since Mao, so his insights are valuable and his access is perhaps unrivaled.

– Gary Locke

I’m so proud of my Chinese ancestry, but I was born and raised in America, and I really believe in American values, our American system, our freedom, our liberties.

– Gary Locke

If we expose the Chinese to our freedoms, it may create a greater hunger for democracy, reform and liberties in China.

– Gary Locke

I consider myself a D.I.Y. home improvement guy. In a prior life, I completely gutted a house – redid the plumbing, wiring, moved sewage pipes, knocked down walls, everything.

– Gary Locke

Americans are very easygoing people. If the added attention and great visibility that I have been able to generate can help open doors and expose more Chinese to American values and the American way of life, that is great.

– Gary Locke

One of the last books I read was ‘Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime’ by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. It gives a really good behind-the-scenes look at the campaigns. I didn’t ask the president how accurate it was. I wouldn’t ask him that.

– Gary Locke

I confess to loving a good murder mystery – anything by Scott Turow or John Grisham. Maybe it’s a holdover from my days as a criminal prosecutor in Seattle.

– Gary Locke

For generations, people have come to U.S. shores to seek opportunity. It’s what my grandfather did a century ago, when he came to Seattle, and worked as a houseboy just one mile from the Washington State governor’s mansion that I was privileged to inhabit for eight years.

– Gary Locke

In rural parts of China, it’s like stepping back into the era of my grandfather or great-grandfather – not much has changed.

– Gary Locke

As President Obama clearly said just a few months ago, China must play by the international rules, the international trading system from which they’ve benefited so much.

– Gary Locke

Every year, some 65,000 high school students – many of them star students and leaders in their communities – are unable to go to college or get a good job because they have no legal status.

– Gary Locke

The U.S. tries to provide immigrants who grow up here with a world-class education and imbue them with the can-do attitude that has long defined American innovation.

– Gary Locke

I think that there is a concern, a question mark, by people all around the world and governments all around the world, as to what China’s intentions are.

– Gary Locke

The constant influx of new cultures, new ideas and new ways of looking at old problems is a big part of the reason why America has been the most dynamic economy in the world for well over a century.

– Gary Locke

We want to promote people-to-people exchanges so that China and the United States can really join together, not just to solve the problems of China or the United States, but some of the big problems facing the entire world. From climate change to famine to even terrorism.

– Gary Locke

The human rights record within China seems to rise and fall over time, but it’s very clear that in the run up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and since then, there’s been a greater intolerance of dissent and the human rights record of China has been going in the wrong direction.

– Gary Locke

I’m somewhat overwhelmed by the microblogging that takes place in China, and the smartphones and all the people that want to take pictures of myself and my family.

– Gary Locke

If the Chinese can’t buy U.S. products, they’ll buy them from European countries and then develop stronger economic ties with France and Germany and perhaps side more with those countries when international issues flare up.

– Gary Locke

Diversity of thought and culture and religion and ideas has been the strength of America.

– Gary Locke

China is a country, still, of great contrast. While hundreds of millions of people are part of the middle class and yearn for things made in America – American brands, movies, music – there are other hundreds of millions of people throughout China who are living on the equivalent of one U.S. dollar a day.

– Gary Locke

China’s history is marked by thousands of years of world-changing innovations: from the compass and gunpowder to acupuncture and the printing press. No one should be surprised that China has re-emerged as an economic superpower.

– Gary Locke

I understand that in these difficult economic times, the potential for any additional expense is not welcomed by American businesses. But in the long run, the health insurance reform law promises to cut health-care costs for U.S. businesses, not expand them.

– Gary Locke

I think that people always just assumed that I was a liberal because I came from Southeast Seattle.

– Gary Locke

I’ve been through WTO riots in Seattle, massive earthquakes, major floods… forest fires. I just try to be as even-keeled and calm as possible.

– Gary Locke

Ethnic diversity adds richness to a society.

– Gary Locke