I'm a competitive person.

We discussed politics, but we also talked about the importance of hard work, personal responsibility, living within your means, keeping your word. Those lessons stay with you throughout your life.

Some of the most important conversations I've ever had occurred at my family's dinner table.

Politics is a contest among people of diverse backgrounds and philosophies, advocating different solutions to common problems. The system only works when principled, energetic people participate.

I don't know what leadership is. You can't touch it. You can't feel it. It's not tangible. But I do know this: you recognize it when you see it.

It's appropriate to celebrate public service, and the thoughtful people who choose to serve. They symbolize what is good and decent about this historic citizen legislature, and we thank them.

Leadership is about doing what you know is right - even when a growing din of voices around you is trying to convince you to accept what you know to be wrong.

I support stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research.

Serving in Congress has been the honor of a lifetime.

We have no more fundamental obligation in government than to ensure the safety of our citizens.

Thoughtful people of different political philosophies can disagree, but in a very agreeable manner.

Fact is just fiction with different storytellers

You have the world at your feet if you have wisdom in your mind.You have the world in your hands if you have joy in your heart.You have the world in your bosom if you have love in your soul.

Once a man strays out of the common herd, he's more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels.

Anything can happen: anything. Or nothing. Who can say? The world, monstrous, is made that way, and in the end consumes us all. Who am I, administrated or no, to have the audacity to survive it?

However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.

OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .

There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.

I've been overwhelmed; I was a single mother for a time.

brb, ttyl ok? wow, i saved a 'ton' of time with those acronyms.

I don't want you to leave Which is exactly why I should. But don't worry. I'm essentially a selfish creature. I crave your company too much to do what I should.