“The liberal ideal is that everyone should have fair access and fair opportunity. This is not equality of result. It's equality of opportunity. There's a fundamental difference.”

“Technology is changing so fast that knowledge about specifics can quickly become obsolete. That's why so much of what technicians learn is on the job.”

“True patriotism isn't cheap. It's about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going.”

“We never used to blink at taking a leadership role in the world. And we understood leadership often required something other than drones and bombs. We accepted global leadership not just for humani...”

“Medical costs are soaring because our health-care system is totally screwed up. Doctors and hospitals have every incentive to spend on unnecessary tests, drugs, and procedures.”

“Those at the top would do better with a smaller share of a booming economy that elicits a positive politics than they will do with an ever-larger share of an anemic economy that fuels the politics ...”

“Rather than the strength it takes to not lose, it's the strength to stand back up after a loss that is sometimes more valuable.”

“You need to be my wife to win with me.”

“Look yourself... staring into the monitor... and your time is going to be lost like that...First secondsSecond minutesThird hours”

“They had killed themselves over our dying forests, over manatees maimed by propellers as they surfaced to drink from garden hoses; they had killed themselves at the sight of used tires stacked high...”

“The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.”

“If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and...”

“You keep waiting for the moral of your life to become obvious, but it never does. Work, work, work: No moral. No plot. No eureka! Just production schedules and days. You might as well be living ins...”

“Does truth have a moral?”

“I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.”