"I'm as frustrated with the French, I think, as anyone, but look, there's going to be other challenges and there are going to be other issues. As long as there's a war on terrorism going on, we're all going to have to work together." -- John McCain
"And the people who live in the southern part of my state do not have a secure environment. To wit, there are signs that the government put up that say, 'Warning. You are in a drug smuggling area and a human smuggling area.'""And, if we lost, then who win? Did Al Qaida win? When on the floor of the House of Representatives they cheer - they cheer - when they pass a withdrawal motion that is a certain date for surrender, what were they cheering? Surrender? Defeat?""As a governor and senator, John Chafee set the standard for honesty and decency that the rest of us on our best days could only dream to emulate.""Barbara Boxer is the most bitterly partisan, most anti-defense senator in the United States Senate today. I know that because I've had the unpleasant experience of having to serve with her.""But please know, whether you believe campaign contributions are speech or property, that I learned to love very dearly the right of free expression when I lived without that freedom for a while a long time ago.""Do not yield. Do not flinch. Stand up. Stand up with our President and fight. We're Americans. We're Americans, and we'll never surrender. They will.""I am a Republican. I'm loyal to the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. And I believe that my party, in some ways, has strayed from those principles, particularly on the issue of fiscal discipline.""I am fully prepared to be commander in chief... I don't need on-the-job training.""I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.""I don't doubt the sincerity of my Democratic friends. And they should not doubt ours.""My greatest fear is the Iranians acquire a nuclear weapon and give it to a terrorist organization. And there is a real threat of them doing that.""On 'don't ask, don't tell' I was always the same. I said we needed a complete review of the impact on morale and battle effectiveness of 'don't ask, don't tell' before we repeal it. That's my position now. Now they're trying to ram through a repeal without a - any kind of really realistic survey done.""On the subject of Osama bin Laden... we will track him down. We will capture him. We will bring him to justice, and I will follow him to the gates of hell.""Only the most deluded of us could doubt the necessity of this war.""Our armed forces will fight for peace in Iraq, a peace built on more secure foundations than are found today in the Middle East. Even more important, they will fight for two human conditions of even greater value than peace: liberty and justice.""Our political differences, now matter how sharply they are debated, are really quite narrow in comparison to the remarkably durable national consensus on our founding convictions.""Remember the words of Chairman Mao: 'It's always darkest before it's totally black.'.""Thank God for our form of government. The media won't let there be any cover-up.""The American people want us to stop spending. And so let's just give them some certainty. Let's extend the tax - the existing tax cuts. And then let's give some more tax breaks to small businesses and large. And then maybe the American people will have some confidence.""The core political values of our free society are so deeply embedded in our collective consciousness that only a few malcontents, lunatics generally, ever dare to threaten them.""The first pork-barrel bill that crosses my desk, I'm going to veto it and make the authors of those pork-barrel items famous all over America.""The problem... is that most members of Congress don't pay attention to what's going on.""The tea partiers are a great addition. The tea partiers have invigorated a base that has been dormant for a long period of time. We're going to have a broad array of different views in our Republican conference, and I think it might be more interesting than any I've been in in a long time.""The way you have bipartisan negotiations, you sit down across the table, as we did with Ted Kennedy, as I've done with many other members, and you say, 'OK, here's what I want, here's what you want. We'll adhere to your principles, but we'll make concessions.'""War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.""We cannot forever hide the truth about ourselves, from ourselves.""We know that Medicare's going broke in seven years, but we need to start over.That's what the American people want us to do.""We must win in Iraq. If we withdraw, there will be chaos; there will be genocide; and they will follow us home.""You cannot tell the enemy you're going to leave and expect the enemy to not - and expect to succeed. I mean, that's just a fundamental of warfare."
Faith of My Fathers by John McCain, Mark Salter (Random House, August 1999) ISBN 0-375-50191-6 (later made into the 2005 television film Faith of My Fathers)
Worth the Fighting For by John McCain, Mark Salter (Random House, September 2002) ISBN 0-375-50542-3
Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life by John McCain, Mark Salter (Random House, April 2004) ISBN 1-4000-6030-3
Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember by John McCain, Mark Salter (Random House, October 2005) ISBN 1-4000-6412-0
Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them by John McCain, Mark Salter (Hachette, August 2007) ISBN 978-0-446-58040-3
Articles and forewords
"How the POW's Fought Back", by John S. McCain III, Lieut. Commander, U.S. Navy, U.S. News and World Report, May 14, 1973 (reprinted for web under different title in 2008). Reprinted in Reporting Vietnam, Part Two: American Journalism 1969—1975 (The Library of America, 1998) ISBN 1-883011-59-0
"The Code of Conduct and the Vietnam Prisoners of War", by John S. McCain, Commander USN, National War College, April 8, 1974 ( actual paper)
Foreword by John McCain to A Code to Keep: The True Story of America's Longest-Held Civilian POW in Vietnam by Ernest C. Brace (St. Martin's Press, 1988) ISBN 0-709-03560-8
Speeches of John McCain, 1988—2000
Foreword by John McCain to Glory Denied: The Saga of Jim Thompson, America's Longest-held Prisoner by Tom Philpott (W. W. Norton, 2001) ISBN 0-393-02012-6
Foreword by John McCain to The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam (Random House, 2001 edition) ISBN 1-588-36098-9
Foreword by John S. McCain to Unfinished Business: Afghanistan, the Middle East and Beyond — Defusing the Dangers That Threaten America's Security by Harlan Ullman (Citadel Press, June 2002) ISBN 0-8065-2431-6
Foreword by John McCain and Max Cleland to Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming by Jonathan Shay (Scribner, November 2002) ISBN 0-7432-1156-1
Foreword by John McCain to Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts by the Editors of Popular Mechanics (Hearst, August 2006) ISBN 1-588-16635-X
Introduction by John McCain to Pearl Harbor, the Day of Infamy, an Illustrated History by Dan van der Vat (Black Walnut Books, 2007) ISBN 1-897-33028-6
"An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom: Securing America's Future" by John McCain Foreign Affairs, November/December 2007
Alexander, Paul. Man of the People: The Life of John McCain (John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey 2002). ISBN 0-471-22829-X.
Brock, David and Waldman, Paul. Free Ride: John McCain and the Media (Anchor Books 2008). ISBN 0-307-27940-5.
Drew, Elizabeth. Citizen McCain (Simon & Schuster 2002). ISBN 0-641-57240-9.
Feinberg, Barbara. John McCain: Serving His Country (Millbrook Press 2000). ISBN 0-761-31974-3.
Hubbell, John G. P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-Of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964—1973 (Reader's Digest Press, New York 1976). ISBN 0-88349-091-9.
Karaagac, John. John McCain: An Essay in Military and Political History (Lexington Books 2000). ISBN 0-739-10171-4.
McCain, John and Salter, Mark, Faith of My Fathers (Random House, New York 1999). ISBN 0-375-50191-6.
McCain, John and Salter, Mark. Worth the Fighting For (Random House, New York 2002). ISBN 0-375-50542-3.
Rochester, Stuart I. and Kiley, Frederick. Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961—1973 (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 1999). ISBN 1-55750-694-9.
Schecter, Cliff. Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't (PoliPoint Press 2008). ISBN 0-979-48229-1.
Timberg, Robert. An American Odyssey (Touchstone Books, New York 1999). ISBN 0-684-86794-X. Chapter 1 available online.
Timberg, Robert. The Nightingale's Song (Simon & Schuster, New York 1996). ISBN 0-684-80301-1. Chapter 1 available online.
Welch, Matt. McCain: The Myth of a Maverick (Palgrave Macmillan 2007). ISBN 0-230-60396-3.