I was raised in an Italian catholic family in Baltimore, Maryland. Our faith is very important to us, our patriotism, love of faith, love of family, love of country. I took pride in our Italian American heritage and to be the first woman speaker of the House and the first Italian American speaker of the House, it's quite thrilling for me.

Take inventory of what you have to offer. Place a value on it. Respect it - because if you don't respect what you have to offer it's hard for other people to.

We're sad about some of the losses of members of great seniority and distinction in the Congress, and some very new members, who will no longer be serving with us.

Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.

Everybody will have lower rates, better quality, and better access.

I don't reject the concept of preemptive war. I'm a mother of five. I have five grandchildren. And I always say: Think of a lioness. Think of a mother bear. You come anywhere near our cubs, you're dead. And so, in terms of any threat to our country, people have to know we'll be there to preemptively strike. But what the president [Bush] did was, on the basis of no real intelligence for an imminent threat to our country, chose to go into a war for reasons that are still unknown to us.

Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs.