America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.

I try to hold my charisma in check.

Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.

We are not here to enjoy the things on earth, but to pass them around. The people who do it are the happiest people you know!

We need an independent media to hold people like me to account.

I think 9/11 guaranteed that national security is going to be in the forefront of every election.

We don't want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America.