Washington doesn't have just a spending problem, or just an entitlement problem, or just a taxing problem. We have a leadership problem. Fix that, and the first three problems are solved.

Often, sustainability is discussed only in the context of energy. Energy sustainability is essential - but the word has a much broader meaning. It means long-term thinking about how we manage our businesses, invest in social spending, and plan for the future. This requires vision and leadership, and it requires citizen engagement.

Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.

Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so to speak. Or better, we continue and extend it.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.

I am in jail for defending human rights, not independence.

There are several different ways we can get at unclogging the arteries of lending in America and helping working people achieve financial independence. Part of that is going to be through executive action. Part of that is going to be through reconciliation.

I think America is strong enough to fix the problems, grace and honor to D.C. I think energy independence and control spending. We have to go to a balanced budget. Quite frankly, as far as our debt goes, I don't think you can tax your way out of it. I think people are taxed enough.

I think a common misperception about attuning and tending to a child's needs so constantly is that they don't grow in their independence, but I think that the opposite is true.

We are totally committed to ending partition and to creating the conditions for unity and independence.

My grandfather, or Nana Ji, as we called him, was a family legend. Amarnath Vidyalankar spent his life fighting for India's independence, which included spending four years in prison in Mahatma Gandhi's movement. I still remember the conversations we had together, many of them while playing chess.

If the history of the western moral imagination is the story of an enduring and unending revolt against human cruelty, there are few more consequential figures than Raphael Lemkin - and few whose achievements have been more ignored by the general public. It was he who coined the word 'genocide.' He was also its victim.

I'm trying to write poems that involve beginning at a known place, and ending up at a slightly different place. I'm trying to take a little journey from one place to another, and it's usually from a realistic place, to a place in the imagination.

Every parent knows this moment in a child's age when he or she needs your attention in a very specific way because it's the beginning and ending of the early life of imagination. It's such a responsibility.

You will certainly not doubt the necessity of studying astronomy and physics, if you are desirous of comprehending the relation between the world and Providence as it is in reality, and not according to imagination.

After spending 460 days as a hostage, I did emerge a fundamentally changed person. But I think, like everyone does as they grow older and probably wiser, I can look back at my earlier life - my history, my mistakes, the joy I felt as a young woman traveling the world - with some objectivity and even some humor.

A lot of my humor centers on the act of telling jokes and I think this can prevent certain audiences from suspending their feeling of disbelief. It might piss a few people off, but I can't help it.

My books are shelved in different places, depending on the bookstore. Sometimes they can be found in the Mystery section, sometimes in the Humor department, and occasionally even in the Literature aisle, which is somewhat astounding.

Wherever my story takes me, however dark and difficult the theme, there is always some hope and redemption, not because readers like happy endings, but because I am an optimist at heart. I know the sun will rise in the morning, that there is a light at the end of every tunnel.

Compromise is but the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another - too often ending in the loss of both.

I like happy endings in movies. I think life has a happy ending. When it's all said and done, it's all something worthwhile, and I want my movies to reflect that. There are enough things to be sad about. When you pop in a movie, let the message be one that's one of hope.

Coming home, we stopped for a bite to eat and ran into a confused waitress. Had a heart-rending time trying to speak the Words of Life to her, and as I think of all this country now, many just as confused, and more so, I realized that the 39th Street bus is as much a mission field as Africa ever was.

What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.

Going home and spending time with your family and your real friends keeps you grounded.