In an atmosphere of liberty, artists and patrons are free to think the unthinkable and create the audacious; they are free to make both horrendous mistakes and glorious celebrations.

You on the cutting edge of technology have already made yesterday's impossibilities the commonplace realities of today.

Education is not the means of showing people how to get what they want. Education is an exercise by means of which enough men, it is hoped, will learn to want what is worth having.

Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.

With all this talk about the supposed strain in relations [with the Soviet Union], there is an inference that somehow it is our fault. But we didn't kill Russian civilians by shooting down a civilian airplane. We didn't attempt to conquer an adjacent country to ours. We didn't walk out on negotiations and refuse to give a date for when we would resume.

Here's my strategy on the Cold War: we win, they lose.

Whether meeting with leaders and parents concerned about drugs in Bonn, Lisbon, or with the Holy Father at the Vatican, or doing a pretty fair flamenco in Madrid, I think Nancy's one of the best ambassadors America's ever had.