“Where will our country find leaders with integrity, courage, strength-all the family values-in ten, twenty, or thirty years? The answer is that you are teaching them, loving them, and raising them right now.”

But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

The home is the child’s first school, the parent is the child’s first teacher, and reading is the child’s first subject.

There are a lot of ways to serve, and being president is not the only one, and I would hope that someone else would run.

If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities.

I really feel very strongly that the person who runs for office is the courageous one, and the one who everybody has to know.

Raising five boys is a handful, trust me.

Well, look at what people are doing for returned veterans now. The wounded warriors. They’re working hard to make the wounded veterans feel that they are loved and welcomed home, unlike Vietnam. It was not a very kind, gentle world then. I think we are kinder and gentler.

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.

Some people give time, some money, some their skills and connections, some literally give their life’s blood . . . but everyone has something to give.

Believe in something larger than yourself … to get involved in some of the big ideas of our time.

The personal things should be left out of platforms at conventions. You can argue yourself blue in the face, and you’re not going to change each other’s minds. It’s a waste of your time and my time.

Raising George Walker was not easy.

I’m a liberal when it comes to human rights, the poor; so’s George Bush. . . . But Liberal and Conservative don’t mean much to me anymore. Does that mean we care about people and are interested and want to help? And if that makes you a Liberal, so be it.

I mean Afghanistan is a very rugged, complicated country.

I’m not saying to be happy you must be married. Nor am I saying that to be happy you need children. I’m saying that if you opt for children – be you man or woman – you have to take care of them.

. . . learning never ends, and as we enter the next century, it will be more and more important for all Americans to be lifelong learners. . . . every one of us can contribute in some way to a better-educated America.