There is enormous continuity beneath the day-to-day news that makes America that indispensable nation when it comes to maintaining order and promoting prosperity around the world.

If you've got a business - you didn't build that.

There have been times where, let's say on LGBT issues, when we were trying to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and I got the Pentagon and Bob Gates, a Republican holdover from the [George W.] Bush administration, to authorize a study of how you might end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, headed up by Jeh Johnson, who at that time was a council to the Justice Department. And it was going to take a year to conduct that study, issue a report, and figure out how it might be implemented, what effect it would have on unit cohesion and military effectiveness.

As I got older, then my particular ambitions started cohering around creating a world in which people of different races or backgrounds or faiths can recognize each other's humanity, or creating a world in which every kid, regardless of their background, can strive and achieve and fulfill their potential.

In the midst of this enormous economic crisis, I think Canada has shown itself to be a pretty good manager of the financial system and the economy in ways that we always - haven't always been here in the United States.

I don't think that hedge funds are bad per se. I think they're just one more financial tool. And in that sense, they're useful.

If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void: lobbyists and special interests; the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election and those who are making it harder for you to vote; Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry, or control health care choices that women should make for themselves.