African American boys oftentimes fall behind in school early, start feeling discouraged, check out, drop out, end up on the streets and then get into trouble.

There's no straight line to progress.

I want to make sure that we, as a nation, stay unified because that's how we're going to achieve our missions.

In Texas, we hold very dear to intrusions against our personal liberty. We fight very hard against that.

I think that Mr. Snowden raised some legitimate concerns. How he did it was something that did not follow the procedures and practices of our intelligence community. If everybody took the approach that I make my own decisions about these issues, then it would be very hard to have an organized government or any kind of national security system.

There are problems that just end up being really hard and by definition the only problems that come to my desk are the ones that nobody else can solve.

It is possible for leaders or regimes to be cruel, bigoted, twisted in their world views and still make rational calculations with respect to their limits and their self-preservation.