Key quotes from the final Presidential debate

5.30pm

Following are key quotes from the final United States presidential debate between Republican President George W Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry:

KERRY: "Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country."

BUSH: "You know, there's a main stream in American politics, and you sit right on the far left bank."

KERRY: "I regret to say that the president who called himself a uniter, not a divider, is now presiding over the most divided America in the recent memory of our country."

BUSH: "I believe that God wants everybody to be free. That's what I believe. And that's been part of my foreign policy."

KERRY: "You just heard the president say that young people ought to be able to take money out of Social Security and put it in their own accounts. Now, my fellow Americans, that's an invitation to disaster."

BUSH: "My call to our fellow Americans is, if you're healthy, if you're younger, don't get a flu shot this year."

KERRY: "This president has taken a US$5.6 trillion surplus and turned it into deficits as far as the eye can see."

BUSH: "I want to remind people listening tonight that a plan is not a litany of complaints, and a plan is not a programme that you can't pay for."

KERRY: "I'm tired of politicians who talk about family values and don't value families."

BUSH: "He talks about PAYGO (pay-as-you-go budgeting). I'll tell you what PAYGO means: when you're a senator from Massachusetts, when you're a colleague of Ted Kennedy, pay go means: You pay, and he goes ahead and spends."

KERRY: "I'm going to stand up and fight for the American worker, and I'm going to do it in a way that's fiscally sound."

BUSH: "Two things: One, he clearly has a litmus test for his judges, which I disagree with. And secondly, only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 per cent increase in funding for education was not enough."

KERRY: "The president has never said whether or not he would do that (overturning the Supreme Court decision legalising abortion). But we know from the people he's tried to appoint to the court he wants to."

BUSH (Asked, what is the most important thing he has learned from his wife and daughters?): "To listen to them. To stand up straight and not scowl."

KERRY: "Well, I guess the president and you (the moderator) and I are three examples of lucky people who married up. And some would say maybe me more so than others."

- REUTERS