If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I wouldn't pass it around. Wouldn't be doing anybody a favor. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble. That's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say, meet it as a friend,...
I think of myself as living so much outside borders or old categories that I choose as my leaders U2, the Dalai Lama, Vaclav Havel, Sigur Ros, Desmond Tutu, Barack Obama, and the girl next door. By definition, in short, my leaders are the ones who th...
The need for civility in society has never been more important. The foundation of kindness and civility begins in our homes. It is not surprising that our public discourse has declined in equal measure with the breakdown of the family. The family is ...
In many ways I'm similar to Barack Obama, who also has a strange name but was raised by a white American mother. His background is far more complicated than his name would suggest. Furthermore, the fact that I was a child during the hostage crisis ha...
I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust…We must dissent because America can do bette...
The Philippines and the U.S. have had a strong relationship with each other for a very long time now. We have a shared history. We have shared values, democracy, freedom, and we have been in all the wars together in modern history, the World War, Sec...
Do I believe in coupling? Do I believe in commitment? Do I believe in co-parenting, raising children together, having a family, and growing old with someone? I absolutely believe in all of those things. I just don't believe that you need to be marrie...
He's my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression... I cannot see him. I cannot have a relationship with my father and be morally consistent. I lived with all these adopted children,...
I traveled the state of Florida for two years campaigning. I have never met a job creator who told me that they were waiting for the next tax increase before they started growing their business. I've never met a single job creator who's ever said to ...
I am excited about focusing full-time on talking about my job-creation agenda and building a new economy for Washington state. We have a great chance to seize our own destiny, build our own industries, and create our own technological revolutions rig...
Unlike the Contract with America, which was created by Washington pollsters and insiders, Families First was developed from the grassroots up. Congressional Democrats from across the country spent months meeting with people back home, asking them wha...
Most of my folks back home think Social Security and Medicare are sacred commitments stronger than the strongest contract. And yet if you look at the details here in Washington, they're not even promises. They're scheduled benefits. I think we need t...
If we lose those people who come to the United States and get a PhD in computer engineering for example and they can't get a visa to stay in the United States, they are sent home, not only do we lose those people working here, but we lose the opportu...
I'm riding my man Obama. I think he's a visionary. Actually, Barack told me the first date he took Michelle to was 'Do the Right Thing.' I said, Thank God I made it. Otherwise you would have taken her to 'Soul Man.' Michelle would have been like 'Wha...
When you're a politician, someone always wants something from you, so they're constantly telling you how smart or great you are, and that can warp people! Exercising humility is important to me. My friends back home treat me like the same person I wa...
You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces - my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the goo...
I play trumpet. And I took all the music courses in college, so I can also play the string instruments, keyboard, the brass and woodwinds - but only well enough to teach them. If you put a violin in front of me, you wouldn't say, 'My God, that guy ca...
Soyons fermes, purs et fidèles ; au bout de nos peines, il y a la plus grande gloire du monde, celle des hommes qui n'ont pas cédé. [Let us be firm, pure and faithful; at the end of our sorrow, there is the greatest glory of the world, that of the...
It's fascinating that people, there's so many people now who will make judgments based on what you look like. I'm black. So I'm supposed to think a certain way. I'm supposed to have certain opinions. I don't do that. You don't create a box and put pe...
Socialism states that you owe me something simply because I exist. Capitalism, by contrast, results in a sort of reality-forced altruism: I may not want to help you, I may dislike you, but if I don't give you a product or service you want, I will sta...
When I became governor, spending actually increased 28 percent my first term. Revenue increased 42 percent my first term without raising anybody's taxes. We did it because we had more taxpayers with more taxable income. That's how you get the revenue...
