There is no suggestion of regime change; quite the contrary, this is an initiative to help people and to help governments who are inclined toward change.

Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.

Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United States of America.

No matter how significant or life-changing your greatest hit or miss might be, neither even begins to define who you are. Each of us is a product of all our experiences and all our interactions with other people. To cite calculus, we are the area under the curve.

America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don't finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don't finish high school.

With respect to our friends in the [Iraq] region, each has its own system, each will have to make its own judgment as to whether it will change, how fast it will change, and we hope that we can help influence them as to how change comes about and what change might be better for them than other forms of change.

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