Too many people, because they were white and poor, black and rich, or just plain busy with something other than politics, have felt they had no voice in our government.

In not my, but our collective hands, is held the promise of change.

Parents with meager means have the same aspirations for their children as other parents. Children from poor families have the same needs as other children.

The top threat that gets very little focus from Washington these days is what Adm. Mike Mullen identified as the biggest threat to the U.S.: the American debt.

Sin is ground in the notion of what is there that I want.

I am one imperfect man saved by God's grace.

But now we have time. Endless time stretches before us.

If something is to stay in the memory it must be burned in: only that which never ceases hurting stays in the memory.

Imperfection inspires invention, imagination, creativity. It stimulates. The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive.

The Sonata is an essentially dramatic art form combining the emotional range in vivid presentation of a full-size stage drama with the terseness of a short story.

All this talk of using tax policy to 'assess social costs'...what a dumb idea. The only way to stop polluters is to put them against walls and shoot them.

My look is either very baroque or very Zen – everything in between makes me itch.

In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance and even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant.

A lot of good things start in Virginia; a lot of good things have started in Virginia. We're no strangers to firsts.

It's not an accident that successful people read more books.

He wakes into music the green forest-bowers.