One of my favorite episodes in West Wing was the homeless man that died and they found, in the overcoat he was wearing, a card of the speechwriter, Toby. He had given that coat to the Goodwill and this guy had ended up wearing it, died in it and Toby went to his funeral. He turned out to be a Korean war veteran. It was our first Christmas episode and that was a true story - a member of the staff had done exactly that. So many of these stories were far better than any fiction.

Those years on the golf course as a caddie, boy, those people were something. They were vulgar, some were alcoholics, racist, they were very difficult people to deal with. A lot of them didn't have a sense of humor.

Anybody who plays golf will tell you that you play against yourself.

Well, I think that Catholicism's basic foundation of faith is personal conscience. I think it's between you and God, not you and the Church.

Once you experience Third World poverty, you're really changed forever, if you're at all open to it, because we're all united in our common humanity. And we are so made as to feel something for people who are in pain. It's not possible to be human and to be unaffected by what you see in the third world.

Future generations are not going to ask us what political party were you in. They are going to ask what did you do about it, when you knew the glaciers were melting.

I think he [President Clinton] was probably the brightest President of the 20th century.