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.

The Cold War has been over for a long time. I'm not interested in having battles that, frankly, started before I was born.

Try to be as honest as possible.

No country can hide from the dangers of carbon pollution

The problem is that the way [President] Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents - number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome - so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back. [That's] $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic.

Here in the United States, hopefully, what we're building are not just pyramids, are not icons to one pharaoh. What we're building is a culture and a way of living together that we can look back on and say, [This] was good, was inclusive, was kind, was innovative, was able to fulfill the dreams of as many people as possible.

I think the Greek people, although it is difficult and challenging and the politics of it I know are not good, should appreciate the fact that in this global economy, the Greek economy was going to have to go through some structural reforms.