Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.

There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully - that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too.

What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water? What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No.1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?

But one immediate thing can be done right now, and that is: lower the temperature. Any way you can, and everybody. Just lower it.

Humor is the shock absorber of life; it helps us take the blows.

[democrats] have become the party of snobs. You have become the party of Americans who think they're better than other Americans.

The biggest political change in my lifetime is that Americans no longer assume that their children will have it better than they did. This is a huge break with the past, with assumptions and traditions that shaped us.