The problem right now is jobs. The problem right now is the economy and economic growth.

The only way to grow the economy in a way that benefits the bottom 90 percent is to change the structure of the economy. At the least, this requires stronger unions and a higher minimum wage.

A leader is someone who steps back from the entire system and tries to build a more collaborative, more innovative system that will work over the long term.

There will always be a business cycle, and white-collar workers will get hit in the next recession like they always do in recessions.

America has become the most unequal society among advanced countries, and rich people are now free to spend as much money on political campaigns as they wish.

The liberal ideal is that everyone should have fair access and fair opportunity. This is not equality fo result. Its equality of opportunity. There's a fundamental difference.

We're the richest economy in the history of the world. For the majority of Americans not to get the benefits of this extraordinarily prosperous economy, there's something fundamentally wrong.

Social change occurs when the gap between the ideals that people hold and the reality that they see every day gets too large.

We do not want to live in a theocracy. We should maintain that barrier and government has no business telling someone what they ought to believe or how they should conduct their private lives.

It is a myth that higher taxes lead to less demand and slower growth. In the first three decades after World War II, US top tax rates on the wealthy were never below 70 percent.

The largest party in America, by the way, is neither the Democrats nor the Republicans. It's the party of non-voters.

I’m almost used to you showing up without shoes, but where the hell are your pants?

It was ridiculous really. I had just won a major race despite not being in top form, yet I was going to dope.

People love misery, they love to feel sorry for themselves, and they definitely don't want to be enlightened. That's the first thing they tell you at boot camp in the higher worlds.

I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed.

Well, every now and then I would hear the preposterous notion that that Jane Pauley sounds like Barbara Walters. Like I could if I tried?

Domestic travel and tourism-related spending has reached $1 trillion a year.

There is no such thing as an amateur artist as different from a professional artist. There is only good art and bad art.

When you look into the eyes of an animal youve rescued, you cant help but fall in love.

Industry, commerce and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of people.

One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.