Generally speaking, people who know me will tell you that my public persona is not that different from my private persona.

The only reason I send a single young man or woman in uniform anywhere in the world is because I think it's necessary to keep us safe.

I wouldn't be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago

Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

I miss Saturday morning, rolling out of bed, not shaving, getting into my car with my girls, driving to the supermarket, squeezing the fruit, getting my car washed, taking walks.

I have always had extraordinarily good relations with very conservative colleagues. And that's not because I agree with any of them or fudge on my positions, but people feel I listen to them and give them the benefit of the doubt. I assume the best of people. And that, I think, is an attitude that is maybe rare in politics.

Every major world religion has identified marriage as between a man and a woman.