We in Los Angeles, who have ourselves been helped to stand up - to recover and rebuild after a disaster - want to help the families and communities of the Gulf Coast,.

Let me be clear - no one is above the law. Not a politician, not a priest, not a criminal, not a police officer. We are all accountable for our actions.

I got to grow up with a mother who taught me to believe in me.

If you wave a flag, make it an American Flag.

I'm not looking for a battle with anybody, neither the council nor our labor partners.

Actually, as president of the Conference of Mayors, we passed the Simpson-Bowles plan as a template, as a template, as a frame work for moving forward and the president has done the same.

You can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect people are going to vote for your party or your candidate.

You all know I love L.A., but tonight I really love L.A.

I'm not one of the people who have to be in public office.

We're not a homogeneous party, anymore than the Republicans are. But we are a party that I think has a plan to take us forward.

Again, if I was going to call Romney and the Republicans stupid, I'm certainly not going to call the Democrats and President Obama stupid.

How far can you go in life if you don't love yourself?

Go for it. It will make a great story.

Whoever we are here, we might be princesses somewhere else. Or writers. Or scientists. Or presidents. Or whatever the hell we want to be that everyone else says we can't.

When a writer has done the best that he can do, he should then withdraw from the book-writing business and take up an honest trade like shoe repair, cattle stealing, or screwworm management.

It's not the sort of night for bed, anyhow.

I think the jobs [at the top] are unbelievably difficult, and there is nothing easier than second-guessing people.

Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl.

Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with.

The summer I finished my first novel Ghana Must Go, I drove across west Africa: from Accra to Lomé to Cotonou to the deliciously named Ouagadougou.

Bruce Benedict is so slow he'd finish third in a race with a pregnant woman.