We can still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace. So that’s what I strive to do and pray to do every day.

I think the American people can change Washington. But I think that it is not going to change, because somebody from on high directs that change.

Globalization combined with technology, combined with social media and constant information, have disrupted people's lives sometimes in very concrete ways; a manufacturing plant closes and suddenly an entire town no longer has what was the primary source of employment.

We've got to be able to have a conversation and recognize we're all Americans; we all want the best for this country. We may have some disagreements in terms of how to get there, but all of us want to make sure that our economy is strong, that jobs are growing. All of us want to make sure that people aren't bankrupt when they get sick. All of us want to make sure that young people can afford an education.

If we're trying to protect the American public, we should not put in place a travel ban.

And that, I suppose, is what I'd been trying to tell my mother that day: that her faith in justice and rationality was misplaced, that we couldn't overcome after all, that all the education and good intentions in the world couldn't help you plug up the holes in the universe or give you the power to change its blind, mindless course.

If all it took was someone proclaiming I believe Jesus Christ and that he died for my sins, and that was all there was to it, people wouldn't have to keep coming to church, would they.