As social secretary, I was responsible for putting together all the events that the President and the First Lady host.

There's no time to waste. Every day, there needs to be movement on something.

I don’t do ordinary work. That is not me in the least.

It's the past, it's behind us, and that's the end of it.

I love bringing people together. I think that the environment is so important in terms of what kind of relationships you might be able to create, how people get to know each other.

I'm a business person at heart.

Johnson Publishing offered me an opportunity to build back iconic brands like Ebony and Jet magazines.

How can we salute - encourage the American spirit? That means many different things to many different people.

We have not really advertised Chicago internationally.

I was in the White House for a year and a half. Up to that point, all my jobs had been very unglamorous.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

What is kinder--to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance--or to see them as they are, and accept it because it makes them comfortable?

Meeting him was fate, loving him was a choice, and spending the rest of my life with him… well that was destiny.

But it's just that the whole country is making generally lousy films these days and has been for quite a while. That's the big problem that we all have to think about.

Learning never takes place while you're talking.

He who has gold makes and accomplishes whatever he wishes in the world and finally uses it to send souls to paradise.

The isolation of every human soul and the necessity of self- dependence must give each individual the right to choose his own surroundings.

One of my biggest fears - maybe my biggest weakness as a Christian - is that I have a hard time going up to a stranger and talking to them about Jesus.

Stand-up used to be much more of a form combat. Heckling was much more common [in the '90s]. And I couldn't get stage time, and so I would go out to Pip's in Sheepshead Bay.

When it comes to your inner critic, my advice is to not take advice from someone who doesn't like you. That's like returning to the perpetrator for healing after you've been abused.