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

When you get people standing up saying, 'I'm going to just tell the truth; what do we have to fear?,' it encourages others, and it creates a counterresponse.

Many years later, a psychiatrist friend of mine said something to us. He said, "Respect denial." It's a powerful force.

Wars tend to be very public things, they are visible. There are correspondents traveling with the troops and you get daily dispatches.

Two sons, they'll both be presidents after they win their Nobel Prizes. And the daughters, they'll be prima ballerinas before they become the president of Princeton and start their Internet company. And I just started to think about What's the conventional load of those expectations you carry around? You have to pull them out one by one and smash them in the corner. You realize the pile is quite high. But in a way, it becomes oddly liberating to do that.

The media has become more forceful, has begun to recognize its traditional historic role and act on it, and truth is infectious.

Message matters. Message matters almost as much as actions.