Insist that the first question each of us asks isn't "What's good for me?" but "What's good for the country my children will inherit?

My expectation would be that if we can begin discussions soon, shortly after the Iranian elections, we should have a fairly good sense by the end of the year as to whether they are moving in the right direction.

If we're serious about building an economy that lasts, we have got to get serious about education. We are going to have to pick up our games and raise our standards.

I'm kind of a night owl.

We can rattle our sabers all we want but, realistically, we don't have troops for an invasion [Iran] and surgical strikes aren't going to work.

[White House is] the finest prison in the world.

Affirmative action is not going to be the long-term solution to the problems of race in America, because, frankly, if you've got 50 percent of African-American or Latino kids dropping out of high school, it doesn't really matter what you do in terms of affirmative action. Those kids aren't going to college.