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I didn't get to the Senate by accident.

I loved being in the Senate. That was a wonderful experience.

I was listening to the guy that represented me in the state Senate, and I just got really frustrated. I called my wife and said, 'I've always wanted to do something that makes a difference.' So I ended up running and won.

Twenty-six years ago, I became the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right. I was the first, but I made sure I wasn't the only.

Montanans elected me to the Senate to do away with shady backroom deals and to make government work better.

I have never left another senator out to dry. Never.

Too many of my Senate colleagues overdid it. They stayed on too long - napping through committee hearings when they should have packed up and gone home.

In the spring of 1994 I decided not to seek reelection to the Senate. I had made the decision 12 years earlier, Christmas Day of 1982, just after I had been first elected to a full term, that I would do the best I could for a limited time.

I ran for Congress, just once.