I believe [the Department of Energy] should be judged not by the money we direct to a particular State or district, company, university or national lab, but by the character of our decisions. The Department of Energy serves the country as a Department of Science, a Department of Innovation, and a Department of Nuclear Security.

Coal is my worst nightmare.

Pick the right sized pot, don't pick a pot five times bigger, twice as big.

The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity.

Since I walked in the door as secretary of energy, I've been doing everything in our powers to do what we can to reduce these gas prices. ... So, of course we don't want the price of gasoline to go up; we want it to go down.

What the American family does not want is to pay an increasing fraction of their budget, their precious dollars, for energy costs.

I also developed an interest in sports, and played in informal games at a nearby school yard where the neighborhood children met to play touch football, baseball, basketball and occasionally, ice hockey.