I think the average American, if they go to the workplace, somebody's next to 'em, they're not poking around trying to figure out what their religious beliefs are.

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

I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules.

The framers, in their wisdom, designed the [political] system so that power's pretty disbursed.

It wasn't until about a year, year and a half in where I began to realize that the Pentagon and our national-security apparatus and the CIA were all getting too comfortable with the technology as a tool to fight terrorism, and not being mindful enough about how that technology is being used and the dangers of a form of warfare that is so detached from what is actually happening on the ground. And so we initiated this big process to try to get it in a box.

Literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy.

That is our generation’s task - to make these words, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American.