And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.

It simply isn't fair for senators to cut to the front of the line when seniors around the country have been forced to wait for hours to get a flu shot.

Millions of Americans take vitamins safely every day, including me. Vitamins and mineral supplements taken in recommended doses are safe. It's the designer supplements that are worrisome.

We can't do much about ensuring that the homeland is safe if our local police and sheriffs' departments don't have the personnel they need to keep our streets and neighborhoods secure.

It is unacceptable that disabled veterans in Illinois rank at the bottom of the list when it comes to disability pay. We owe our disabled veterans more than speeches, parades and monuments.

We will have health care reform in America.

Our party is a diverse one, as is my home state of Illinois.

There is no room for legal hair-splitting when it comes to the humane treatment of detainees - not in a nation founded on the rule of law and respect for human rights.

We have 11 million people in this country that need a pathway to citizenship.

You know, the purpose of reconciliation is to avoid the filibuster. The filibuster is an effort to talk something to death.

Unfortunately the Republican tax cut will deny important revenues to many states facing their own deficits. This will create greater pressure for higher state and local taxes.

A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written.

It’s been raining outside and I feel like a sad poet, hating my imagination pissing on the roof.

There's something about girls together, uniting, that I just thought was cool.

The understanding smile of an old wife to her husband is one of the loveliest things in the world.

Time Warner has called and they want us all back on the couch, just consuming - not producing, not sharing - and we should say, 'No.'

I want to be enriched by the music I listen to. That's the reason it never really exists in the mainstream. Because that's not what most people are after.

Obviously I wanted to be a bus driver - and I still do. If only I could get a part time job.

I want to perform an unnatural act.

Is your face a beautiful blossom or a sweet torture? I have no complaints but my heart is tempted to let you hear of its sorrows.

I'd had no particular interest in the Southwest at all as a young girl, and I was completely surprised that the desert stole my heart to the extent it did.