Well, what I tried to do is simply to get out on the land. And when I came to Washington, I think one of the mistakes we made early on was kind of having an ideological dispute up in the Congress.

Well, I think breathing life into the Endangered Species Act, taking those wolves back into Yellowstone, restoring the salmon in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest.

We have to preserve it and use it sustainably. And the short-term use of resources at the destruction of the long-term heritage of this country is not a policy that we can pursue.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.

City parks serve, day in and day out, as the primary green spaces for the majority of Americans.

We've set aside tens of millions of acres of those northwestern forests for perpetuity. The unemployment rate has gone not up, but down. The economy has gone up.

It is like living in a wilderness of mirrors. No fact goes unchallenged.

The Northwest is in better shape than it was eight years ago.

I would argue that practices that destroy ecosystems always destroy jobs.

Taxes are the flip side of expenditures. The same issues apply on both sides. There are questions of fairness and justice as much in the way you take money away as in the way you disburse it.

I am one of those people who deeply resents not having been born in the 19th century, when there were still open places to explore.

I went to Catholic high school for half a year and religion wasn't the cool thing to talk about even at a catholic high school. It never came up.

Cinco de Mayo is an important day. The Mexicans had to defend themselves from the French. It is historically significant, but it is not Mexican Independence Day.

There is a certain ecstasy in wanting things you can't get.

What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.

Cooking done with care is an act of love.

The most unique thing about music making is sharing.

Those who seek a better life must first become a better person.

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you're the funniest person you've ever heard of.

When I went to high school, an all-boys' school, a Catholic school, I tried out for football, and I didn't make it. It was the first time, athletically, that I was knocked down.

Some are born virtuous, some become virtuous. To be good by nature is indeed fortunate but to become good is like walking on a double-edged sword; it takes a longer time and is more painful.