"I have absolutely no regret about my vote against this war. The same questions remain. The cost in human lives, the cost to our budget, probably 100 billion. We could have probably brought down that statue for a lot less."

"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."

"The president led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence he embraced a radical doctrine of pre-emptive war unprecedented in our history and he failed to build a true international coalition."

"Let's just do what is right for the American people. And those of us who are involved in politics and government know that our responsibility is to the American people, that we have a responsibility to find our common ground, to seek it and to find it."

"Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep."

"I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry that is, prose = words in their best order - poetry = the best words in the best order."

"Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say."

"See, my hope and dream is that people have a good time watching basketball. It's not church. It's not serious."