On the back benches, you can have your say but no power to do anything.

Growing up, I was always in the kitchen. Even in third grade, I made cooking videos called 'The Little Italian.' Very little production value, but it was good.

My heroes are the non-commissioned officers. If I had another life thats what Id be - a regimental sergeant major or a similar rank. Thats where the spirit of the armed forces is.

I never expected to be Defence Secretary. It's a great privilege.

We in the west walked away from Afghanistan at the end of the cold war and left it as a country devastated socially and armed to the teeth. If we do that again there will be consequences.

I come from a pretty tough background and I learned a long time ago not to be bothered.

Despite the increasingly presidential style of political leadership in our country, teamwork is essential.

Writers are creatures of habit, as are humans, but writers aren’t necessarily human, are they?

It is our courage which defines us, not our constraints

Love is the power to see similarity in the dissimilar.

People don't change when they don't acknowledge their actions.

Ruefulness is one of the classical tones of American fiction. It fosters a native, deglamorized form of anxiety.

Can you see the power emotion has to distort our outlook? Makes you wonder, did you have a bad day, or did you make it a bad day." ~Fablehaven - Rise of the Evening Star

The best thing we can do if we want the Russians to let us be Americans is to let the Russians be Russian.

In Les Mots I explain the origin of my madness, of my neurosis. This analysis may help the young who dream of writing.

I liked Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and that is the kind of character that I would like to have played. That would have been more in tune with who I really was.

There's a growing sense that the online ad industry is out of control from a privacy perspective and that some rules need to be put in place.