Look for what's missing. Many advisors can tell a President how to improve what's proposed or what's gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn't there.

Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.

Don't divide the world into 'them' and 'us.' Avoid infatuation with or resentment of the press, the Congress, rivals, or opponents. Accept them as facts. They have their jobs and you have yours.

There are things that we know, and there are things that we don't know. Then there are the things that we don't even know that we don't know. Those are the things that are the hardest.

What is needed [to combat terrorism], in my view, is resolve, not retreat; courage, not concession. Rather than thinking in terms of an exit strategy, focus on a strategy for success.

Our goal is to defend the American people, and to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and to liberate the Iraqi people.

The Federal Government should be the last resort, not the first. Ask if a potential program is truly a federal responsibility or whether it can better be handled privately, by voluntary organizations, or by local or state governments.