The good is, like nature, an immense landscape in which man advances through centuries of exploration.

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.

The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will.

We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.

Like every parent, when you start your family, your life completely changes. And you completely live for someone else. I find that the most extraordinary thing. Your life is handed over to someone else. From that moment on, they come first in every choice you make. It's the most wonderful thing.

What I learned growing up on the farm was a way of life that was centered on hard work, and on faith and on thrift. Those values have stuck with me my whole life.

No matter how much we try to run away from this thirst for the answer to life, for the meaning of life, the intensity only gets stronger and stronger. We cannot escape these spiritual hungers.

I am pro-choice, but I don't consider that inconsistent at all with pro-life - there's no way that having an abortion, ever, is an easy decision, and it more often errs on the side of absolutely wrenching, not to mention physically debilitating.