Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be an American.

Even as people take pride in their national independence, we know we are becoming more and more interdependent.

In the new economy, information, education, and motivation are everything.

From the small clubs of the Harlem Renaissance where he began playing saxophone to world tours for the biggest of the big bands, Benny Carter redefined American jazz. From the start, his fellow musicians said the way he played the sax was amazing. They say that about me, too. (Laughter.) But I don't think they mean it in quite the same way.

...More important than the deficit, more important then healthcare-more important than anything-we have got to do something about our energy strategy. Because if we permit the climate to continue to warm at an unsustainable rate, and if we keep on doing what we're doing until we're out of oil and we haven't made the transition, then it's inconceivable to me that our children and grandchildren will be able to maintain the American way of life and that the world won't be much fuller of resource-based wars of all kinds.

I'm pretty good at seeing like a lot of different things happening at once and putting them in a pattern and figuring out how you can rearrange it so it might have a better outcome.

$100,000 donors buy access to Congress and the White House. We believe it's long past time to clean up Washington.