You are the most powerful cultural force in the world.

Democracies don't go to war against each other, and by and large they don't sponsor terrorism. They're more likely to respect the environment and human rights and social justice. It's no accident that most of the terrorists come from non-democratic countries.

When I leave the office on January 20th, I will leave even more idealistic than I was the day I took the oath of office.

Over the past 7 years, we've tried to modernize the economy, and today what we're doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down these antiquated walls, and granting banks significant new authority.

I'm someone who had a deep emotional attachment to 'Starsky and Hutch.'

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.

Considering the current sad state of our computer programs, software development is clearly still a black art, and cannot yet be called an engineering discipline.