If you go out and make some things happen, you will fill the world with hope.

We need more responsibility, but we need it not just when there's a crisis. I mean, we've had years in which the reigning economic ideology has been what's good for Wall Street, but not what's good for Main Street.

What we also have to recognize is that the deficit levels that I'm inheriting, over a trillion dollars, coming out of last year, that that is unsustainable. At a certain point, other countries stop buying our debt, at a certain point, we'd end up having to raise interest rates, and it would end up creating more economic chaos and potentially inflation.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country's scared.

If you're a progressive, you've got to be worried about how the federal government is spending its revenue, because we don't have enough money to spend on things like early childhood education that are so important.

The Russians can't change us or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country. They are a weaker country. Their economy doesn't produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms. They don't innovate. But they can impact us if we lose track of who we are.

Even when our heart aches, we summon the strength that maybe we didn't even know we had, and we carry on; we finish the race.