American Quotes

I have no regrets. I don't believe in looking back. What I am proudest of? Working really hard... and achieving as much as I could.

I do not espouse the unitarian position. President Clinton's assertion of directive authority over administration, more than President Reagan's assertion of a general supervisory authority, raises serious constitutional questions.

I think that if there are positions that you can't argue... then the responsibility is probably to resign. If one's own conscience is opposed to the requirements and responsibilities of the job, then it's time to leave the job.

And what my constitutional values are are wholly irrelevant to the job, and so neither you nor anyone else will know what they are.

What my political views or my constitutional views are just doesn't matter.

It was a very cool thing to be a smart girl, as opposed to some other, different kind. And I think that made a great deal of difference to me growing up and in my life afterward.

You have to liberate yourself first from the prejudices of the world in which you live.

Without history we are the prisoners of the accident of where and when we were born.

We, to some degree, are like what we are because we inherited certain things from the Greeks and the Romans. One of them that's so striking is the whole area of politics.

Throughout the human experience people have read history because they felt that it was a pleasure and that it was in some way instructive. The profession of professor of history has taken it in a very different direction.

I can see that you are a true historian because you really always ought to ask that question about anybody at a different place or a different time: What's the same and what's different?

History had its own way of explaining things. The way historians explain things is by telling a story.

From the time I was a little boy I found myself reading history when I had a choice. I read a lot of things, but history had a special appeal for me.

All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire.

Your mind simply can't focus forward and downward all at the same time.

Times might be tough, your head and thoughts might be spinning, but I find it's physically impossible to do that spiral thing when your mind is focused on giving and creating opportunity.

There are few people who define the word, 'rock star' better than U2's Bono. He's revered the world over not just for leading one of the biggest bands ever, but for his very public work on behalf of the underprivileged in Africa.

Talking doom and gloom all day no longer fit who I was as a person.

My two must-haves are my cell phone and my MacBook Pro laptop, which allows me to update my Web site from wherever I am, whether I'm in Africa or in Sun Valley skiing.

It's important to be informed but I also think it's important to be inspired. I'm creating a space where people can be inspired.

If you're really invested in feeling bad about the world, there are a lot of media outlets out there that you can turn to.

I think most people live in a space where they are looking for meaning in life and good in the world and that is not necessarily reflected in straight news coverage right now.

I think it's particularly fun not being a full-time showbiz reporter because you still have the 'Oh, wow!' factor when you go out on the red carpet and there are these big stars that are standing there. But if you're doing this day in and day out, it becomes a little blase.

Everyday I meet folks who show me how to look at challenges differently.

If you don't take your clothes seriously, why should your viewers take you seriously?

Bad things do happen in the world, like war, natural disasters, disease. But out of those situations always arise stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Thoughts would go in and out of my mind, but I didn't want to believe that he could have done it.

The circumstance is the incredible part, but I always knew in my heart that something was going to be out there, just for the world to notice me. It sounds so cocky, but it's happening.

Sometimes people who get wealthy when they are very, very young, it's a curse to them. They don't realize it.

People should realize that I shot a Coke commercial back in 1986. So, you know, I've been around a long time. I carry my Screen Actors Guild Card.