We should also give students more flexibility in the courses they take in high school to prepare them for whatever their goals may be, without sacrificing our rigorous academic standards.

In the myopic world of the liberals, guns are responsible for evil instead of the perpetrator of evil. But criminals are not bound by our laws. That's what makes them criminals.

The foundation for future prosperity is built on the bedrock of good jobs and great schools. We are building a strong foundation one job at a time and one educated Texan at a time.

Running for the presidency's not an IQ test.

I may have the genetic coding that Im inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way.

I hope I am the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses.

Every life is precious.

Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don't have to buy from a foreign source.

Dark economic clouds are dissipating into an emerging blue sky of opportunity.

Armed and law-abiding citizens are a greater deterrent to violent crime than 1,000 laws passed by Congress.

America needs jobs, smaller government, less spending and a president with the courage to offer more than yet another speech.

History is changed by martyrs who tell the truth.

But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to.

I do not 'get' ideas ideas get me.

I've lived my career backwards - I started off huge and I've got smaller and more personal, and I'm much more comfortable now.

Graduate school is a place to hide for a couple of years.

The better a work environment is, the better it is for the employer - not just the employee.

Facts are not interesting to me.

At one point I felt a tension between objects, their real, physical lives, and the idea of meaning: the physical, material reality of a book, and the totally intangible experience of reading it.

I think writing is really a process of communication. . . . It's the sense of being in contact with people who are part of a particular audience that really makes a difference to me in writing.