Our paradigm now seems to be: Something terrible happened to us on September 11, and that gives us the right to interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must agree with us. And if they don't, they can go straight to hell.

From New Hampshire forward, for reasons that absolutely mystified me, the press thought the most important issue in the race was the middle class tax cut. I never did meet any voter who thought that.

I think just about everybody ought to get a second chance and I'd like to see it worked out, because he (Pete Rose) brought a lot of joy to the game, and he gave a lot of joy to people, and he's paid a price - God knows, he's paid a price.

The other thing we have to do is to take seriously the role in this problem of . . . older men who prey on underage women. . . . There are consequences to decisions and . . . one way or the other, people always wind up being held accountable.

When you get asked hundreds of questions, it's not possible to remember the answer to every one.

When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.

The divide of race has been America's constant curse. Each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction, are no different. They have nearly destroyed us in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. They torment the lives of millions in fractured nations around the world. These obsessions cripple both those who are hated and, of course, those who hate, robbing both of what they might become.