In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.

Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive.

The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. It's to change the behavior of the people that are being terrorized.

I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won't last any longer than that.

We know where they are [Iraq's weapons of mass destruction]. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Most of the 50 or so invitations you receive each week come from people inviting the President's Chief of Staff, not you. If you doubt that, ask your predecessor how many he received last week.

I tend over the years to have developed a certain hesitancy about believing that headlines tell the whole story.