I am a southerner who grew up with and around guns. I own some still. My father gave me a .22 rifle when I was 9 and a single barrel .410 shotgun when I was 10.

We often talk too much & listen too little. The surer route to winning a friend isn't to convince them that you're right, but that you care what they think.

Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma.

[T]o argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt.

A lot of people, including business leaders, think the future belongs to China. Globalization is not a zero-sum game, but we need to hone our skills to stay in play.

Religious belief, like history itself, is a story that is always unfolding, always subject to inquiry and ripe for questioning. For without doubt there is no faith.

The Occupy Wall Street protests at last suggest that America's wealth gap is once again becoming an organizing political principle in the country.

Liberty is precious. But so is life. It should not be so difficult for men and women of good will and good heart and sound mind to find the right balance between the two.

In the fullness of time, I suspect that bigotry against homosexuals will seem as repugnant as racial prejudice does today. Or so one hopes.

No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty.

Jefferson was the rare leader who stood out from the crowd without intimidating it.

We [ with Andy Samberg] knew each other for the last few years, our names are similar, our looks are a little bit similar, and our backgrounds are similar. The Judaism is quite similar.

Inspiration is solitary, never consecutive.

Back home the black women are all beautiful

Our children are trying to tell us something. And we are not listening.

I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.

Food is strength, and food is peace, and food is freedom, and food is a helping hand to people around the world whose good will and friendship we want.

It's that I wasn't suited to do the kind of comedy that these people were coming to hear - mainstream comedy.

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.

What a different world this would be if people would listen to those who know more and not merely try to get something from those who have more.

What the vengeance, could he not speak 'em fair?