In politics you learn to always smile.

I have long said there are three distinct groups under the GOP's tent: theological warriors, who want to impose their social views on the rest of society; Tea Party zealots, who say with a straight face that they want the government to get out of their Medicare; and remnants of the pro-business moderates.

I would very honestly just tell you that what I tried to do was simply respond to inquiries from people as they came in. Where I've thought I could say something useful, I've tried to add a voice that was, frankly, a dissident voice earlier on, but one that I think has become a more mainstream voice-and not because I've shifted. I think that the critique I had of what was going on in our financial system from six, eight years ago-after seeing some of what we've suffered through and even since the cataclysm itself-in terms of the structural changes.

It sucks. I used to be governor of New York.

My career was obviously cut shorter than I wanted it to be.

Delay is the enemy of progress.

Virtually everywhere in the world, people still wake up and want their country to be more like the United States than any other nation. We are the envy of the world because of what we stand for and how our democratic process, flawed as it may often seem to be, operates. We should take pride in that.