I think you have to be a little bit strict. You can't be friend and their parent in a lot of situations, especially in this day and age where it's so dangerous for kids. So there's a bit of sternness, I guess, in the way I raise my kids.

Like an old photograph, time can make a feeling fade, but the memory of a first love never fades away.

I think there are more people waiting to forgive me than I need to forgive them.

I coach my daughter's softball and basketball team. We go to all the school functions. We go out to eat at night and take the kids to the movies. We try to be as normal as we can.

I know if I told you what God looked like and felt like then I'd be telling you a story. I just think we don't know. God manifests himself, herself or itself in a way that we need it, in a way that we can grab a hold of and a way that we can put our arms around.

It’s innate in me to be a Democrat — a true Southern populist kind of Democrat. There’s not a lot of those anymore. I’m not saying I’m right or wrong. That’s just the way I feel. The issues that matter to me are the social safety nets for people, health care, middle-class concerns. We need to take care of the middle class and the poor in our country. The chasm is getting larger between haves and have-nots, and that’s something we need to close down a little bit.

I always want to learn but I am sure on my dying day I will feel like I left something in the bucket.