ON AFRICA
Africans are going to have to be responsible for their own salvation. We have to be partners with them in that process. The African-American community has to be attentive to their issues. On the flip side, African leaders have to create a rule of law that is not corrupt, that is transparent.
ON THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY
I firmly believe the overwhelming majority of African-Americans are just as hardworking, just as intent to go about their business. What is true, though, is sometimes we get into the mode of it's easier to blame white folks for things than us taking the responsibility.
ON AIDS
We are all sick because of AIDS – and we are all tested by this crisis. Neither philanthropist nor scientist; neither government nor church, can solve this problem on their own. AIDS must be an all – hands on – deck effort.
ON BEING A CHRISTIAN
You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away – because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey.
There are still passages that I read in the bible where I say, well, this doesn’t make any sense.
ON BOOKS THAT HAVE INSPIRED HIM
Right around my first year of college, I read Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison. It just moved me tremendously. The power of language and how it can peel back truths, bring things to the surface.
ON HIS CHILDHOOD & CHILDREN
My mother taught me not to reject a compliment when it’s offered.
One of the wrestling matches I’m always having with my staff is getting my kids' events onto the schedule. I have to make sure they understand that’s a priority.
ON HIS CIGARETTE HABIT
I’m a reformed smoker; I think that surprises people. I quit, but then during the campaign when you’re in a car driving through cornfields, occasionally I bum a cigarette or two. But I did all my drinking in high school and college. I was a wild man. I did drugs and drank and partied. But I got all my ya- yas out.
ON HIS CRITICS
It’s not that I’m being cautious. It’s that I disagree with them.
ON THE CURRENT STATE OF POLITICS
We should be engaged in Darfur. We have a self-interest and a stake in preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being slaughtered.
ON GAY MARRIAGES
I opposed the defence of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal. I will also oppose my proposal to amend the US constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying. I know how important the issue of equal rights is to the LGBT community. I share your sense of urgency.
ON GUN CONTROL
I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers’ lobby. But I also believe when a gangbanger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels someone disrespected him, we have a problem of morality. Not only do we need to punish that man for his crime, but we need to acknowledge that there’s a hole in his heart, one that government programmes alone may not to be able to repair.
ON HOW HE MAKES DECISIONS.
If I look at an issue or if I look at how I approach campaigning, if it’s something that is consistent with my broader values and is just a matter of tactics – having to take half a loaf – then that’s something I’m comfortable with, and that’s sort of the nature of the process. If it’s something that violates my core beliefs, then it’s not worth it.
ON THE INTERNET
We can’t have a situation in which the corporate duopoly dictates the future of the internet and that’s why I’m supporting what is called net neutrality. And part of the reason for that is companies like Google and Yahoo might never have gotten started had they not been in a position to easily access the internet and do so on the same terms as the big corporate companies that were interested making money on the internet.
ON IRAQ
We’re not going to babysit a civil war.
ON ISLAM
All of us, particularly religious leaders, have to be mindful that there are a lot of sensitivities out there. Now, the flip side is that there are those in the Muslim community who are looking to take offence and are constantly on the lookout for anything that would indicate that the West is somehow antagonistic towards Islam.
ON ISOLATIONISM
We cannot afford to be a country of isolationists right now. 9/11 showed us that, try as we might to ignore the rest of the world, our enemies will not ignore us.
ON ISRAEL
There are a lot of people in that area, with lots of different interests and points of view, and they all have to be taken into consideration, and we can’t just rally around Netanyahu.
ON THE MEDIA
I’ve got a wife who knocks me down a peg any time I start believing what they’re writing about me is true.
ON HIS PERSONAL STRENGTH
I probably always feel on some level I can persuade anybody I talk to.
ON THE PRESIDENCY
I want to be a really great president. And then I’ll worry about all the other stuff. Because there are a lot of medicine or poor presidents in our past.
ON RACE
It was only ten years ago where if I was standing outside of a restaurant waiting for my car, people would toss me the keys.
ON THE WAR ON TERROR
Where the stakes are the highest in the war on terror. We cannot possibly succeed without extraordinary international co-operation. Effective international police actions require the highest degree of intelligence sharing, planning and collaborative enforcement.
ON WRITING BOOKS
I am somebody who usually writes out the rough draft in longhand. Then I type it into the computer, and that is where I do my editing. I find that if I write it on the computer, I go too quick. So I like getting that first draft out and then typing it in; you are less self-conscious about it.
ON ABORTION
No one is pro-abortion.
