Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

Noting his mother's visit to Las Vegas the weekend before she died. She got to go to heaven four days early.

You live in the age of interdependence. Borders don't count for much or stop much, good or bad, anymore.

We know there are billions of stars and planets literally out there, and the universe is getting bigger. We know from our fancy telescopes that just in the last two years more than 20 planets have been identified outside our solar system that seem to be far enough away from their suns - - and dense enough - - that they might be able to support some form of life. So it makes it increasing less likely that we're alone. But if we were visited someday, I wouldn't be surprised.

When I first came to Washington in the 1960s, even at the height of the Vietnam War, until the end there in '68 there was a certain climate of cooperation. And then in the late sixties and in through the seventies, politics began getting more mean. And then from the eighties on it seemed to be institutionalized, this personal attack business. And I just hate it.

I might not have been President if it hadn't been for school music. Learning improves in school environments where there are comprehensive music programs.

The worst thing about not being president anymore is I was disoriented for three weeks because nobody every played a song when I walked in.