“I support the death penalty for the kingpin, the guy at the top, but I don’t think you should throw a drug offender in jail for five years, and let a mugger out after a year.”

People are angry and dispirited about government because of a failure to do something about crime.

Let me say this, to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little tiny, yes, porky amendments – the American people really don’t care.

I don’t think we should be putting first-time drug offenders in jail for five years. It’s a waste of resources.

But these days there are a lot of younger people who would like to go into teaching but don’t because the economic opportunities are sometimes elsewhere.

If we are going to stay a great power and I hope and pray we will we need the truth. We need to know what is going right and we need to know what is going wrong. There is no greater time than now.

This is government’s primary function – to keep us safe – and when large percentages in America don’t feel safe, they start asking: What am I paying my taxes for? What is government all about?

There are many reasons why Mitt Romney should not become president, but perhaps the most important of all is the narrowness of his experience, perspective and vision.

Crime can be a unifying argument – not an argument that people use as a code for us vs. them.

I’m strongly for a patient Bill of Rights. Decisions ought to be made by doctors, not accountants.

I think teaching should be an exalted profession, not a picked-on profession.

Inaction is perhaps the greatest mistake of all.

The public knows how many good things there are as part of the Affordable Care Act. The Republicans say they’re going to repeal. They don’t know what to replace it with.

Giving up even an ounce of precious freedom is a very serious thing to do.

You do have to change things as warfare changes.

Certainly any president – Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative – should keep an open mind until they get the briefing.

We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don’t starve. Those are values, too.

Men, I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die. In the time that it takes us to die, other forces and commanders can come and take our place.

I think people have gotten to know Tupac much better since he’s been gone than they did when he was here.

It’s not like I’m dying to do work that’s taken seriously, and I’m not looking to become a thespian. It’s not what I’m looking for; I’m just looking to do quality work.

This nation has never lived without independence. We cannot and shall not live without it. Either independence or death.

An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.

My dad’s death reminds me of earthquakes – things that shake your foundation.

I’m the end of the line; absurd and appalling as it may seem, serious New York theater has died in my lifetime.

When I’m doing an appearance somewhere and taking questions from the audience, I can always count on: ‘Tell about the guy who died on your show!’