I would say that a wasted vote is voting for anybody you don't believe in. If you believe in the third party, that's the guy you need to voice for. That's how you change things.

Regardless of who wins, an election should be a time for optimism and fresh approaches.

I'm one of those who believe the bumper sticker: If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. The first people who are going to be in line to turn in their guns are law-abiding citizens. Criminals are going to be left with guns.

That's the first sign you know you're a Libertarian. You see the red light. You stop. You realize that there's not a car in sight. And you put your foot on the gas.

Unlike President Obama, I am not afraid to state, without a wink or a nod, that the government has no right to tell us who we can marry or not marry.

I climbed Mount Everest. I don't quit.

People are clamoring to hear good ideas as opposed to the lesser of two evils... Either the Democrats are going to win or the Republicans are going to win, but the losers are all of us out here as citizens that really do want meaningful change, and none of it's happening. There's no dialogue regarding meaningful change.

I don't think you can climb Mount Everest with a broken leg, but I did break my leg prior to going to Mount Everest, so I was really climbing with a healing broken leg. I had the good fortune of climbing the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. That was a goal that I had.

Do I favor the death penalty? Theoretically, I do, but when you realize that there's a 4 percent error rate, you end up putting guilty people to death.

In a zero corporate tax rate environment, if the private sector doesn't create tens of millions of jobs, then I don't know what it takes to create tens of millions of jobs.

I believe we can, and must, strike a balance between our shared American values of religious liberty and freedom from discrimination. My concerns lie with the possible consequences of politically-driven legislation which claims to promote religious liberty but instead rolls back the legal protections held by LGBT Americans.

All I suggest is to make K-12 like higher education. Higher education in the United States is the best in the world because these institutions compete with each other for your tuition dollar. Let's just bring competition to public education.

If I could wave a magic wand, we would eliminate income tax; we would eliminate corporate tax. We would abolish the IRS, and we could replace all of it with one federal consumption tax.

One of the biggest concerns that many voters have with both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but particularly with Ms. Clinton, is the sense that she uses government power to advance her personal and political interests. She is the very status quo. Americans want that changed.

If there were no government-guaranteed student loans, college tuition would be much lower.

I hope that people will see that we don't have to sit by the sidelines and watch as the two major parties limit their choices to slightly different flavors of the status quo. It is, in fact, possible to join the fray, stand up for principles and offer a real alternative.

I agree that the two-party system stomps on any kind of competition. A great first step is to open the presidential debates to all qualified candidates, including the Libertarians. If that happens, the Libertarian party will experience unprecedented growth.

Marriage equality - I think that it's a constitutionally guaranteed right. Let's end the drug wars. Let's balance the federal budget, and that means reforming the entitlements - Medicaid, Medicare.

At the earliest age, when I saw a 'wet paint' sign, I had to touch the paint to see if it was wet. When I get stopped at the stoplight in the middle of the night, and there's just no cars coming, and the light is red, I go. I don't think I'm putting anyone in harm's way, and I'll just take the consequences. Because I'm a Libertarian.

I'm a plodder, one foot in front of the other. Life is all about understanding that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. And it's your ability with how you deal with that adversity that ultimately affects your success.

Hillary - at the end of the day, isn't that going to be about bigger government? Isn't that going to be about more taxes?

I'm not a stone-thrower when it comes to Hillary Clinton and her emails and her server. I don't think there has been criminal intent on Hillary Clinton's part. I don't see an indictment.

If China wants to spend $10 producing a product and sell it for a buck, who benefits from that? I think we do. I'm the free market guy. I think free markets work.

There was a big difference between Ron Paul and me when it came to the 'no.' His 'no' was philosophical. It was reasoned. It was right. My 'no' actually put a stop to legislation. It cut spending. Mine carried further than just no.

Religious beliefs have played a vital role in forming America's character as well as my own. I was raised as a Lutheran, and I believe in God and consider my faith and involvement with organized religion to be an important part of who I am.

I just see religious freedom, as a category, as just being a black hole.

I think that the best that government can do for you and I as individuals is to empower you and I to make decisions that only you and I should make.

On Hillary's side, I don't think it gets more establishment than Hillary Clinton. If I had one word to describe Hillary, it would be 'beholden.' Nothing's gonna really change. Government's gonna have the answer to everything, and that's gonna mean taxes are gonna go up.

As governor of New Mexico, I would have - I signed a bill banning late term abortion. I've always favored parental notification. I've always favored counseling. I've always favored the notion of no public funds used for abortion.

I'd like to think I would have signed the Civil Rights bill and wouldn't have had any issues with it.

I love Costco.

I don't want to close the door that if any of us were president of the United States that we would sit idly by and watch something like the Holocaust go down. I don't want to close the door on the United States involving themselves and putting a stop to that. Can we spend money on that? Yeah, I think so.

America is big enough to accommodate differences of opinion and practice on religious and social beliefs. As a nation and as a society, we must reject discrimination, forcefully and without asterisks. Most importantly, as president, I will zealously defend the Constitution of the United States and all of its amendments.

The excitement right now is coming from the Liberty movement. And the Republicans want a piece of it.

I just feel abandoned. And I feel, I don't feel represented by the Republican Party. I have always had to defend the social side of the Republican Party by saying that it's not the majority, that it's not their focus, when everything suggests just the opposite.

I think libertarians need somebody who can articulate getting from A to Z. But you know, if G is achievable, how about it? Let's get there!

Tonight was a great opportunity to take on the political status quo that has given us trillion dollar deficits and put millions out of work. Our objective was to inject some common sense into the conversation among Republicans at a time when business-as-usual simply won't work.

I don't want to put one innocent person to death to put 99 that are guilty to death. So philosophically I'm a tooth-for-tooth guy, but the reality is the death penalty as public policy is flawed.

I think Hillary is going to be more hawkish perhaps than Obama. Perhaps more hawkish than Trump. Trump, though, is really a windshield wiper. He says one thing that makes sense and then says something that doesn't make sense.

I hear that Donald Trump is watching the Olympics tonight. He's seeing how high the Mexican pole vaulters go.

I support gay unions. I think the government should get out of the marriage business completely - leave marriages to the churches. And grant civil unions to gay couples, grant civil unions to a man and woman.

I was raised a Christian. I'd like to think I have Christian values. I don't attend church.

I was opposed to the government mandating that restaurants not allow people to smoke, believing it becomes the customer's choice whether they go in or not. But then, I thought, 'What about the employees? Aren't they hostage to a smoking environment, even if they don't smoke?'

Where in the Constitution does it say that because we don't like a foreign country's leader, we should go in and topple the dictator?

Involvement in Afghanistan, I thought, was totally warranted. We were attacked, we attacked back, but after six months of being in Afghanistan, I thought we had pretty well effectively wiped out al Qaeda.

Balance the federal budget now, not 15 years from now, not 20 years from now, but now. And throw out the entire federal tax system, replace it with a fair tax, a consumption tax, that by all measurements is just that. It's fair.

We're on the verge of a financial collapse unless we balance the budget, and that means some really, really tough decisions.

It is clear from the reaction to our campaign so far that our message is resonating. I look forward to continuing to take this message to all Americans, and showing them that I can be as successful running the country as I was running the state of New Mexico.

If I was a state, I would like to see education left to the schools themselves, but I don't want the federal government involved in education. I think that it ends up setting standards that cost you time and money and don't make any difference in education. I want to stop that.

Using a broad brushstroke, I think Libertarian - most of America are socially accepting and fiscally responsible. I'm in that category. I think, broadly speaking, that's a Libertarian. A Libertarian is going to be somebody who's really strong on civil liberties.