It is a dangerous thing to ask why someone else has been given more. It is humbling - and indeed healthy - to ask why you have been given so much.

I do have a favorite Zeppelin song, Larry, Black Dog.

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.

I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.

I have no doubt that as the Iraqi security forces get better, and they are getting better and they are holding territory and they are doing these things with minimal help, that we are going to be able to bring down the levels of our forces. And I have no doubt that that's going to happen in a reasonable time frame.

We're all products of our environment, and I suspect that strength of will - the feeling, "I'm going to be able to do whatever you put in front of me" - is honed in an environment where not everything is easy. Ironically, growing up in that environment, you don't have a sense of aggrievement or entitlement. You just have a sense of overcoming.

Arnold Rampersad is a really good person. A really good person. As a matter of fact, he came to Stanford when I was Provost.