The public life of every political figure is a continual struggle to rescue an element of choice from the pressure of circumstance.

If eighty percent of your sales come from twenty percent of all of your items, just carry those twenty percent.

I want to thank you for stopping the applause. It is impossible for me to look humble for any period of time.

Withdrawal of US troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public: The more US troops come home, the more will be demanded.

I believe in freedom of expression, and I believe that societies thrive when they permit freedom of expression.

Committees are consumers and sometimes sterilizers of ideas, rarely creators of them.

Well, I don't know whether it caused anguish in China, but it was not a wise way to proceed. But one has to remember that it was the first experience. And in a Republican administration, there is a conservative wing that looks at China as the last embodiment of communism, which therefore tends towards a more bellicose rhetoric anyway than I would. It's not the dominant element, but every once in a while they get a crack at public statement.