What I learned, more than anything, was that you can't have it all balanced perfectly at any one time. When I was young, it was much more balanced toward work. When I had my children, it was much more balanced toward love and family, and I didn't get a lot of work done. So you can't ask of it to be perfectly balanced at any time, but your hope is, before you die, you've somehow had each of those spheres come to life. That's probably more important than success in any one of those spheres alone.

An adult friend of Lincoln's: "Life was to him a school.

I keep thinking that history runs in cycles, and that some day certain large issues will come before the country again. There will be leaders that inspire young people. I don't think it means that it's over forever, but I'm getting pretty impatient. I'm hoping it comes soon, so that my young people can know that experience that we knew in the '60s, and that the World War II generation knew during the '40s.

Whatever it is that you do, if you have that passion and desire for it, that's the most important thing.

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.

I am a historian. With the exception of being a wife and mother, it is who I am. And there is nothing I take more seriously.

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