Family traditions are more than arguments with the dead, more than collections of family letters you try to decipher. A tradition is also a channel of memory through which fierce and unrequited longings surge, longings that define and shape a whole life.

There's intense national feeling in America that could be called patriotism.

You can't get back to power by defining your project in negative terms. But it helps to have somebody in office who represents the opposite of what you believe.

Public service does not necessarily mean service in the House of Commons, and public service is not synonymous with partisan political activity. It comes in a thousand colours, but the common denominator is: it's not about me - it's about we.

How do you keep war accountable to the American people when war becomes invisible and virtual?

We must not lose sight of the fundamental issue of policy which is that people who come to the country on visa status must never be abused.

You're never really out of politics.