"Smart businesses do not look at labor costs alone anymore. They do look at market access, transportation, telecommunications infrastructure and the education and skill level of the workforce, the development of capital and the regulatory market."

"But my view is that you need a system at the border. You need some fencing but you need technology. You need boots on the ground. And then you need to have interior enforcement of our nation's immigration laws inside the country. And that means dealing with the employers who still consistently hire illegal labor."

"It would be unwise to say the least, irresponsible of us at the TSA, at the Homeland Security Department not to evolve our technology to match the changing threat environment that we inhabit."

"Now, a lot of what we are doing right now, quite frankly, is because of what happened on Christmas. Many of the things were kind of in the works. We were already planning, for example, the purchase and deployment of advanced imaging technology. You call them body scanners. We call them AITs (Advanced Imaging Technologies)."

"When I'm performing for the people, I am me, then. I am that little girl who, when she was five years old, used to sing at church. Or I'm that 15-year-old young lady who wanted to be grown and wanted to sing and couldn't wait to be smokin' a cigarette, you know?"

"Patience is a virtue, and I'm learning patience. It's a tough lesson."

"Let him that hath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will have to put up with himself."

"It is a steadfast truth that every scar carries the quiet memory of a battle faced and survived — an essential principle for the reflective life."