No other advanced nation endures this kind of violence. None. Here in America, the murder rate is three times what it is in other developed nations. The murder rate with guns is ten times what it is in other developed nations. And there's nothing inevitable about it. It comes about because of decisions we make or fail to make. And it falls upon us to make it different.

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed

You know, there are certain things that make for good sound bites but don't always translate into good policy.

The programs that have been discussed over the last couple days in the press are secret in the sense that they are classified but they are not secret in the sense that when it comes to phone calls every member of Congress has been briefed on this program. With respect to all these programs the relevant intelligence committees are fully briefed on these programs. These are programs that have been authorized by broad bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006.

Let's take our clothes off and party

One of the things you learn as president is, as powerful as this office is, you have limited bandwidth. And the time goes by really quickly and you're constantly making choices, and there are pressures on you from all different directions - pressures on your attention, not just pressures from different constituencies. And so you have to be pretty focused about where can you have the biggest, quickest impact.

I think we would have made a lot more mistakes and would have accomplished a lot less had we not been grounded in some basic truths.