If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to - and you will - leave, and be something else.

My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage.

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.

The Democratic party should say, "Thank you very much, but you know what, we're going back to be a big-tent party. Broad on social issues like this, we are declaring, go with your heart if you truly feel that you can be, that you are pro-life, and you wanna be pro-life, and a Democrat, go for it." The Democratic party has I think been hurt very badly in terms of its national reputation with this narrow, sort of, you can't be in our party if you don't hold the right views on abortion. It would be a brilliant political move if they opened up.

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

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.'

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