Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!

I can connect with peoples' pain because I was 'po' before I was 'poor'.

If the world market believed that we were serious about energy independence and we were going to utilize all of our own existing resources, the speculators would stop speculating up they start speculating down as we get our own oil out of the ground.

My approach to cutting spending as president, is to do a ten percent across the board cut of all federal agencies, and then ask each of my new agency heads to find another ten percent by drilling down. That's what you do in business to come up with approximately 20 percent cuts for the first fiscal year budget.

I started at Pillsbury as a manager in one of their analysis functions, then worked my way up the corporate ladder to become vice president. Moving to Burger King was an important moment in my career.

It's time to get real, folks. Hope and change ain't working. Hope and change is not a solution. Hope and change is not a job.

Leaders make things happen. Leaders will take a situation and try and figure out what is it that we're trying to do, what is the problem, what kind of priorities and resources do we need, what kind of people do I need to bring to bear on this problem, what kind of plans do we need to succeed.