Excuses are tools of the incompetent used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness

I said this right after the election - we have to remind ourselves we're on the same team. Vladimir Putin's not on our team.

When you've got a economy in which 40 percent of economic growth is happening in the financial sector, that turns out that was all an illusion, that it wasn't growth based on real products and services, but just a bunch of paper shuffling and a house of cards, then what's gonna emerge, at some point, is a sense of resentment, a sense that the system's rigged, and it's not working for ordinary people. And it's not fulfilling the basic American dream.

I've now been in 57 states. I think one left to go.

Your kids grow up. I think they more than anything are making me feel as if, you know, you want to squeeze everything you got every single day out of this thing. Because it passes quick.

There is a wonderful book called "Gandhi's Truth," by Erik Erikson, the psychologist. It is a great book. And I remember reading that and thinking about this connection between what we think in our personal lives and how that manifests itself in our politics. Those are two books, just off the top, that I think are sort of representative of reading that I did at that time. I never get a chance to read anymore.

We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States.