The Smithsonian museums are among this country's most endearing treasures and I look forward to helping maintain and enhance their coveted works of art.

It is critical that parents and other trusted adults initiate conversations with kids about underage drinking well in advance of the first time they are faced with a decision regarding alcohol.

Twenty million more have Chronic Kidney Disease, where patients experience a gradual deterioration of kidney function, the end result of which is kidney failure.

Individuals with kidney disease who are able to obtain treatment early experience a higher quality of life and are able to maintain more of their day-to-day activities, including keeping their jobs.

According to the American Heart Association, the prevalence of hypertension in African Americans in the United States is among the highest in the world.

But 18 years after the passage of the Civil Liberties Act, there still remains unfinished work to completely rectify and close this regrettable chapter in our Nations history.

The good news is that parents are the leading influence on kids decision not to drink alcohol.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the first use of alcohol typically begins at age 12.

Diabetes occurs at twice the rate in the African American community as it does in white Americans.

As of 2002, two million Latino adults had been diagnosed with diabetes.

According to Teenage Research Unlimited, 51 percent of 13-15 year olds say they will be faced with making a decision regarding alcohol in the next three months.

All of our relationships and our interactions, the life affirming ones and the challenging ones, show us how far we have come and where we still need to go.

That's what sofas are for: sit down, drink a cup of tea, talk of literature. At least that's how I see it.

Poems are not often simply emotions butOne has enough emotions -- they're experienceExperience themselves are not important....

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life: by indifference by philosophy and by religion.

Historical investigation and literary criticism have taken the magic out of the Bible and have made it a composite human book, written by many hands in different ages.

The best ballplayer's the one who doesn't think he made good. He keeps trying to convince you.

I think team sports probably teach you more about giving - about being unselfish and being flexible.

Libraries change lives. They are the soul of a people.

Take courage. We walk in the wilderness today and in the Promised Land tomorrow

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.