No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.

The Democratic Party's complete obeisance to [the abortion] lobby makes Democrats look bought, frightened and craven.

one way to keep people close to you is by not giving them enough. ... with people who give a lot of themselves, you sometimes lean back - but with people who give little you often lean forward, as if they're a spigot in the desert and you're the empty cup. It is the tropism of deprivation: We lean toward those who do not give.

I love eulogies. They are the most moving kind of speech because they attempt to pluck meaning from the fog, and on short order, when the emotions are still ragged and raw and susceptible to leaps.

You don't have to be old in America to say of a world you lived in: 'that world is gone.'

The thing political figures fear most is a terror event that will ruin their careers. The biggest thing they fear is that a bomb goes off and it can be traced to something they did or didn’t do, an action they did or didn’t support. They all fear being accused of not doing enough to keep the citizenry safe.

Ted Sorrenson, JFK's presidential speech writer, when asked how it came about that he wrote the "ask not what you can do..." speech, he would answer 'ask not.'