You can't start out at 20 in whatever your profession is and say, "I want to win an Olympic medal," or "I want to become president," or "I want to win the Pulitzer Prize." If you love what you're doing, it's sort of a nice thing that happens toward the end of your career, or in the middle of your career. It is not the reason you were doing it. The reason you were doing it is because every day you wake up in the morning and you can't wait to learn something new.

Lincoln had internalized the pain of those around him-the wounded soldiers, the captured prisoners, the defeated Southerners. Little wonder that he was overwhelmed at times by a profound sadness that even his own resilient temperament could not dispel.

The past is not simply the past, but a prism through which the subject filters his own changing self-image.

I think after Sandy Hook, when Obama went out, and he talked a lot about gun control and met with the parents, there was a sense that something was going to happen. But then, I guess, the power of special interests was greater than public sentiment.

Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.

Where's the progress that we're going to see in Afghanistan? You have to keep public support both on the economy and the war or these things will really become troubling.

That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.