The Secretary of Defense is not a super General or Admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the Department for the Commander-in-Chief and the country.

Reduce the number of lawyers. They are like beavers - they get in the middle of the stream and dam it up.

Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.

We know where they are [Iraq's weapons of mass destruction]. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead.

Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

Look for what's missing. Many advisors can tell a President how to improve what's proposed or what's gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn't there.

Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.

Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.

Gene, protein, function, and fate were strung in a chain: one chemical alteration in one base pair in DNA was sufficient to "encode" a radical change in human fate.

The only way to survive after death is by breathing life into the universe before death.

the ocean mist engulfs me, like a lifetime’s friendship honored.

The comedy gods are smiling on me tonight.

I like to make things. Its been part of my identity since I was a kid.

Celebrity was a long time in coming; it will go away. Everything goes away.

News conference in Chicago, where he apologized for the above statement, which was accepted by the Vatican. (11 August 1966)

We [the United States] are the world's only superpower right now, so everyone notices every bit of what we do or don't do.

I didn't want my last chapter to be the guy who sits at the piano and sings love songs.