For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community.

This [Judge Samuel Alito] may be one of the most significant or consequential nominations that the Senate will vote on since I've been here in the last three decades.

The average voter out there understands that the next president is going to have to be prepared to immediately step in without hesitation and end our involvement in Iraq. It's very difficult to figure out how to move on to broader foreign policy concerns without fixing Iraq first.

We have the greatest resource universities in the world, the only place in the world. We have the most productive workforce in the world. We have the most agile venture capitalists in the world. We have a situation where right now in the United States of America, we are near energy independent. North America is beginning to be the epicenter of energy. What is it that makes people think that this is not going to be the American century? I don't get it.

I think after Sam Nunn left, I'm the last guy in the Senate who got a majority white male vote in their state.

Not that I've always agreed with what she said - far from it - but Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has been properly lauded, in my view, as a judge who approached her duties with open-mindedness and with a sensitivity that affects her decisions would have on everyday, ordinary people.

It's gonna be one of the great achievements of this administration.