You have achieved excellence as a leader when people will follow you anywhere if only out of curiosity.

I want to see policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote.

The only bipartisanship you ever see is when they finally sign a bill and everybody says, 'Gee, isn't that wonderful?'

One important element of leadership is taking care of the troops.

We have to be on guard that we don't spend so much time worrying about terrorism and guarding ourselves that we start to lose the essence of who we are as an open, freedom-loving people, welcoming to the rest of the world.

Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn't go with it.

In the army we are drilled into execution and then supervision, to make sure everything goes the way you planned it. But there is another thing that we do in the military, that I think perhaps isn't done enough in corporate life: As soon as you have made that decision, you start on the contingency planning. Because there is, as we like to say, a thinking, breathing enemy out there, who is not going to let you do just what you want.