I knew that it was harder to unite two lives than I had imagined growing up. I knew that relationships could be fragile.

I think it's important how I come across to my students. I want them to see how professional women dress.

I have visited classrooms near military bases to learn more about what schools were doing to support their military kids. I met with teachers overseas to learn about the particular needs they face thousands of miles from America. And I listened to my own granddaughter, who dealt with her father's yearlong deployment to Iraq.

I've always believed you've got to steal the joyful moments when you can.

I think that being raised the way I was, where everything was so uncompromising, where, you know, we're prepared to fight to the death for the soil that you believed belonged to you - that kind of extreme engagement is very difficult to flush out of your system - or your belief system, anyway.

I hate flying. It creeps me out, and it scares me half to death.

The symbolic language of the crucifixion is the death of the old paradigm; resurrection is a leap into a whole new way of thinking.

Pop music has been all but relegated to the remainder bin at MTV and VH1, where high-maintenance concoctions such as Paris Hilton, Flavor Flav, and Hulk Hogan's biohazard clan of bleached specimens provide endless hours of death-hastening diversion.