I'm a radical pro-immigration advocate. I'm not saying we just look at the Muslim world or we just look at China, we just look at India as a source of our talent. But, one thing we know... first or second generation or new immigrants or children of immigrants have started about 40% of the Fortune 500 companies. For me it's always been a really very important issue that I want America to be open to the most energetic and talented people from around the world.

I think the Arab awakening has changed everything and I think a lot will depend on what people there ask of us, may be nothing, it may be a lot. I think that really depends how they find their voice and what they see as their real interest, and hopefully that would be for more schools and not more tanks.

Our bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of taxpayers' money into the mail-order catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay.

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.

A generation ago [the Democratic Party] stood for progressive change. Now they defend every federal program as if each were sacred. They have become the most conservative force in American politics.

The unemployment rate today for people with our-year college degrees is 4.1%, which is almost none. That's people switching jobs basically. That tells you that education is the only way up and the only way out. If that is the fact, then we've got to get more of it for more people.

When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything, without any fact-checking, it becomes impossible for a democracy to think intelligently about big issues.