I think I would have been much more attuned to the concerns of people who were desperately in need. I was unfamiliar, for instance, with the plight of those living in the small villages in the deserts and the jungles of Africa.

Our values are not luxuries, but necessities. They are not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.

I come out of the environment of the Deep South, where I had seen the millstone of racial discrimination weighting down my people, both the black people and the white people; and I had seen the enormous progress that we were able to make after we removed the legal restraints of a two-class society, with the whites superior and blacks inferior. So I was very convinced before I became President that basic human rights, equality of opportunity, the end of abuse by governments of their people, was a basic principle on which the United States should be an acknowledged champion.

I'm going to stay active as long as I can politically, and with the Carter Center primarily, and if I'm able mentally and physically, will continue to be quite active.

I've used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I've still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.

My favourite president, and the one I admired most, was Harry Truman.

God always answers prayers. Sometimes it's 'yes.' Sometimes the answer is 'no.' Sometimes it's 'you gotta be kidding.