It's possible to dazzle a crowd if you really work at it. But that is no qualification for leadership. Hitler was a master of crowds.

You never fully get over [losing a presidential campaign]. But I've had a good life. I've enjoyed myself 90 percent of the time.

I seek the presidency because I believe deeply in the American promise and can no longer accept the diminishing of that promise.

Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior.

I always thought of myself as a good old South Dakota boy who grew up here on the prairie. My dad was a Methodist minister. I went off to war. I have been married to the same woman forever. I'm what a normal, healthy, ideal American should be like.

It is simply untrue that all our institutions are evil,... that all politicians are mere opportunists, that all aspects of university life are corrupt. Having discovered an illness, it's not terribly useful to prescribe death as a cure.

I was tired. I hadn't slept eight hours in two, three years. I lived on four, five hours of sleep. You can do it during a campaign because thousands are screaming for you. You're getting adrenaline shots each day. Then the campaign ends, and there are no more shots.