California is a very important state. As goes California, so goes the nation. We need to have strong leadership. Someone who can hit the ground running.

It is critical that parents and other trusted adults initiate conversations with kids about underage drinking well in advance of the first time they are faced with a decision regarding alcohol.

Twenty million more have Chronic Kidney Disease, where patients experience a gradual deterioration of kidney function, the end result of which is kidney failure.

Individuals with kidney disease who are able to obtain treatment early experience a higher quality of life and are able to maintain more of their day-to-day activities, including keeping their jobs.

According to the American Heart Association, the prevalence of hypertension in African Americans in the United States is among the highest in the world.

But 18 years after the passage of the Civil Liberties Act, there still remains unfinished work to completely rectify and close this regrettable chapter in our Nations history.

The good news is that parents are the leading influence on kids decision not to drink alcohol.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the first use of alcohol typically begins at age 12.

Diabetes occurs at twice the rate in the African American community as it does in white Americans.

The Smithsonian museums are among this country's most endearing treasures and I look forward to helping maintain and enhance their coveted works of art.

As of 2002, two million Latino adults had been diagnosed with diabetes.

Joy doubles your faith, strength triples your might, and love quadruples your power.

The greatest challenge of parenting is in the inner work it requires: the strength and confidence in believing that we are not in control of, but the answer for our children.

I've not cooked Christmas dinner since 1982.

The truest communication with God is absolute, total silence; there is not a single word in existence that can convey this communication.

The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost.

Family life got better and we got our car back - as soon as we put 'I love Mom' on the license plate.

I tend to [have] a lot of ideas but then just leave them in that infant form and kind of move on.

In my case, adulthood itself was not an advance, although it was a useful waymark.

I keep writing children’s books, I keep making children’s books, because I still have them inside of me.

In war everybody is a prisoner.