I did a lot of work on energy efficiency at the White House. By the time I left we had taken the equivalent of six hundred cars a year off the road in reduced greenhouse gas emissions just in the White House complex.

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.

We should set a national goal of making computers and Internet access available for every American . . . we must help all Americans gain the skills they need to make the most of the connection.

Somehow we all end up paying for what we do.

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

Politics is for people who are too ugly to get into showbusiness.

Being president is like running a cemetery: you've got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening.