It is unacceptable that disabled veterans in Illinois rank at the bottom of the list when it comes to disability pay. We owe our disabled veterans more than speeches, parades and monuments.

And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.

It simply isn't fair for senators to cut to the front of the line when seniors around the country have been forced to wait for hours to get a flu shot.

Millions of Americans take vitamins safely every day, including me. Vitamins and mineral supplements taken in recommended doses are safe. It's the designer supplements that are worrisome.

We can't do much about ensuring that the homeland is safe if our local police and sheriffs' departments don't have the personnel they need to keep our streets and neighborhoods secure.

We will have health care reform in America.

Our party is a diverse one, as is my home state of Illinois.

There is no room for legal hair-splitting when it comes to the humane treatment of detainees - not in a nation founded on the rule of law and respect for human rights.

We have 11 million people in this country that need a pathway to citizenship.

You know, the purpose of reconciliation is to avoid the filibuster. The filibuster is an effort to talk something to death.

Unfortunately the Republican tax cut will deny important revenues to many states facing their own deficits. This will create greater pressure for higher state and local taxes.

Dear Teenage Self, That guy you're crazy about, Will ask you out On a dateIn about ten years, so don't fretYou'll get there yet.But fate is cruelOn that day, That feeling will have gone away.

There is nothing more valuable in the writing process than a friend to hold you accountable to your own potential.

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.

beginnings are usually scary, and endings are usually sad, but its everything in between that makes it all worth living.

No life can surpass that of a man who quietly continues to serve God in the place where providence has placed him.

From day one, my mantra has been - and will continue to be - that as a government we were there to serve the people, not the other way around.

I questioned everything about music. I think it's a strange thing standing on a stage and making music. I just questioned it always: What's music? What's the meaning of it?

Golf is not about the quality of your good shots, it is about the quality of your bad shots.

Writing has been a way of explaining to myself the things I do not understand.

My reason for coming out isn't to be some sort of hero.