When somebody underestimated me, it made me want to prove them wrong.

I believe that Reverend [Florine] Thompson's hit on something. My parents, I and a lot of my friends growing up in that community had tremendous drive.

You are American, whether you profess Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, whether you adhere to Islam, or whether you believe in nothing at all. And you're as American as anybody else, whatever your religious beliefs. But try not to get caught up in media stereotypes of your neighbors and of your country. Think about people that you know and how they treat you. As you get to know someone, it matters not what religious background they have, or what their nationality is, or where they came from. And I think that's how Americans really do relate to each other on a personal level.

I don't think that anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile.

[I'm] very fortunate and blessed person who still has a lot of living to do.

When you're in government, of course, you have protection and you have people who are looking out for your wellbeing, but you can't live in a state of fear. If you do, you're not going to do your job very well and you're going to give yourself high blood pressure, which probably isn't worth it.

It's so much a part of me that it's almost hard to describe myself in the absence of it. I know that for me it means asking for guidance, and that in the toughest times there's a personal savior that I can rely on. And I'm very grateful to my parents for giving me that.