U.S. assistance provides the Jordanian government needed flexibility to pursue policies that are of critical importance to U.S. national security and to foreign policy objectives in the Middle East.

You can have your beliefs, but if you're not devout, you can't quite believe that something which grows out of a story, a book or a piece of literature can rise to dominate and make entire nations go to war with each other. I think that's endlessly fascinating, and it's a human construct. It's something that's constructed to occupy the mind and occupy society, and some people would say to control society.

Do people really think that about my nose? I spent my whole life hating it, so its amusing that people like it!

I love being grungy and dirty.

There is no sign, not one sign, that the Iraqi regime has any intent to comply fully with the terms of Resolution 1441, just as it has failed to comply with previous U.N. Security Council resolutions. The international community gave Iraq one final opportunity to disarm peacefully, and that opportunity has run its course. Dr. Blix [Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector] told us on Monday that there has been no progress toward credible, verifiable disarmament.

I'd have described myself as a Tolkien reader before this, but now I'd describe myself as a Tolkien geek.

I know what Twitter is; I don't use it. I don't use Facebook, so luckily, it does zero to my ego.