I get the reason that you should be willing to negotiate sometimes. But you also ought to be willing to throw a punch.

All three [of my grandkids] earn money around the house, and all three spend their own money. Now I've noticed that when they have to spend their own money on birthday cards, they have decided that homemade cards are so much nicer.

This country isn't working for working people. It's working only for people at the top. That's not the American dream. That's the American nightmare.

Both [of my granddaughters] Octavia and Lavinia have May birthdays. I've just been birthday shopping with them. But the shopping has a budget. I say, "Okay, if you pick this out, then you'll have how much left?" I wait for them to do the calculation, and they'll say, "$18." And we stand there and talk about, hmm, is that sweater really worth that much? And the girls work it through.Doing that takes away some of the magic of money.

I'm still very connected to my family, to the world I grew up in. I understand what it means to be afraid that you can't pay a doctor's bill. Or to have to make the choice between buying a band uniform for a seventh-grader and making the insurance payment on time. That will never leave me. It was how I lived until I was well into my adult years.

Once kids get older, the list is longer. So here goes: Stay out of debt. Sometimes debt is necessary, to buy a home or to get an education, but not to buy a sweater or to eat out.

No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people.