I think that what I'm doing is right. And election-year politics, which intensifies everything, is not going to drive me off that course.

I think there are too many people in jail for too long and for not necessarily good reasons.

One of the things I learned is that you've got to deal with the underlying social problems if you want to have an impact on crime - that it's not a coincidence that you see the greatest amount of violent crime where you see the greatest amount of social dysfunction.

We are not programmed to bury our kids.

It's a sad indication of where Washington has come, where policy differences almost necessarily become questions of integrity. I came to Washington in the late '70s, and people had the ability in the past to have intense policy differences but didn't feel the need to question the other person's character.

There are a whole variety of reasons I want to be attorney general, a whole variety of things that I do as attorney general that go beyond national security.

It pains me whenever there's the death of a law enforcement official.