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"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

— Everett Dirksen Misattributed

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Source, in full

. Dirksen occasionally used the phrase "a billion here, a billion there" in his speeches, but the latter appendage was apparently the work of a newspaper reporter. Dirksen noted that although he never said the whole comment, he liked the misquotation and never seriously objected to its misattribution.

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More quotes by Everett Dirksen

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.

We have been through this biennial convulsion four or five different times over the past 10 or 12 years, and now it appears that we are going through this quiet agony all over again.

Stronger than all the armies is an idea that's time has come. … The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here!

There are gentle men in whom gentility finally destroys whatever of iron there was in their souls. There are iron men in whom the iron corroded whatever gentility they possessed. There are men—not many to be sure—in whom the gentility and the iron were preserved in proper balance, each of these attributes to be summoned up as the occasion requires. Such a man was Harry Byrd.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Everett Dirksen (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.