Here's what I know about political campaigns: no matter what you map out at the beginning, it's always different at the end.

There is only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims: the House majority and their Speaker John Boehner.

America under Barack Obama has become a defensive, reactive and weaker country both at home and abroad.

I can guarantee you this, that more pension and benefit reforms which I will consider arbitration reform to be one of them, are things that when they come to my desk, they will be signed.

You know, something may be going down tonight, but it ain’t going to be jobs, sweetheart!

The greatness of America is in the American people. And what we need to do is get the government the hell out of the way and let the American people win once again.

They believe in teachers unions. We believe in teachers.

You see, Mr. President - real leaders don't follow polls. Real leaders change polls.

Today is the day for the complaining to end and for statesmanship to begin. Today I am taking action to cut state spending and balance the budget this year.

I am who I am, but I am not a bully.

I have a job to do. ... If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics, then you don't know me.

the meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture - it begins in the dignity with which we treat the dead

Become the destroyer of sects - become the breaker of privileges – become the messenger of equality – become the prophet of goodness.

They go to Paris to learn how to make bombs and they come back having learned only how to write poetry, which they think is more explosive.

There are three signs of old age: loss of memory ... I forget the other two.

Now I can do no more. We must trust to the Great Disposer of all events and the justice of our cause. I thank God for this opportunity of doing my duty.

Home interprets heaven. Home is heaven for beginners.

If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.

Writers vary tremendously. Was it Tom Wolfe who stood up or was it [Ernest] Hemingway who had to stand up? I don't know.

True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable

I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.