There's no doubt that it's still a dangerous place, Afghanistan. The fortunate thing is that the United States was helping to provide security for Chairman Karzai. And it shows that the United States is committed to that regime.

The quicker we get about the business of reducing our reliance on oil the better.

My parents elected me president of the family when I was 4. We actually had an election every year and I always won. I'm an only child, and I could count on my mother's vote.

It takes courage to set priorities because doing so is an admission that American policy cannot be all things to all people - or rather to all interest groups

I don't know anyone who is more admired and respected in the international community than President Karzai, for his strength, for his wisdom and for his courage to lead this country first in the defeat of the Taliban and now in rebuilding a democratic and unified Afghanistan. And I can tell you I am with foreign ministers and with heads of state all over the world. I sit in the councils of NATO. I sit with the EU. I sit with people all over the world and there is great admiration for your president and also for what the Afghan people are doing here.

The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly Saddam can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

In the segregated South, education was almost like armor. It was a way to put yourself in a category where even with the slings and arrows and humiliations of racism and segregation, somehow you had better control of the situation. I always said my parents understood that you might not be able to control your circumstances, but they and their parents believed that you could control your reaction to your circumstances.