Confidence is the immaterial residue of material actions. Confidence is the public face of competence.

Every person has their pantheon - the Bible, Hollywood, Shakespeare - their way of understanding the world.

To try to be authentic these days, to ask questions of the people in power - it's difficult. This administration has evolved new techniques to handle people like me. Their strategy, in a word, is simple: ignore them.

[Barack Obama] says that he thinks America felt better, more confident, because Washington was not simply in a gridlock, in stasis, where nothing was being done. And he talks about that as a positive.

The idea that our son would be like Raymond Babbitt was a shocking reordering of everything. And something we couldn't quite fathom, really.

I don't have to deal with the issues of the daily news cycle.

The key is to put your outrage in a place where you can get it when you need to, but not have it bubble up so much, especially when you're asked to explain new ideas or explain what you observed two people who share none of your experiences.