Control your time. If you're working off your in-box, you're working off the priorities of others. Be sure the staff is working on what you move to them from the President, or the President will be reacting, not leading.

In politics, every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.

There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact.

The reality is that terrorists can attack any time at any minute, 24 hours a day, using a variety of techniques, in any place at all. And it's not possible to defend in every place, against every technique, against every conceivable approach. It means that you can't stop every terrorist attack. Innocent men, women and children are going to be killed if terrorists are determined to do it.

From where you sit, the White House may look as untidy as the inside of a stomach. As is said of the legislative process, sausage-making and policy-making shouldn't be seen close-up. Don't let that panic you. Things may be going better than they look from the inside.

The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost.

Oh, Lord. I didn't mean to say anything quotable.