My family didn't have a lot of money, so I worked my heart out to get my degrees. But the minute I graduated, suddenly everyone was asking me, 'Well, when are you going to get married and start having kids?' And the truth is I had no idea how I would balance the expected role of wife and mother with a challenging career.

My mother's love has always been a sustaining force for our family, and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion, her intelligence reflected in my daughters.

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can't make snap decisions. You can't have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

I was not raised with wealth or resources or any social standing to speak of.

Widespread public access to knowledge, like public education, is one of the pillars of our democracy, a guarantee that we can maintain a well-informed citizenry.

The essential job of government is to facilitate, not frustrate, job development.

Democracy can only spring from practising it early, and democratic action was not to expected from young people brought up under a close authoritarian system.

Let's not allow the voice of the people to be overwhelmed by the siren song of those who opposed regulation, who demanded that government should stand aside and let finance and business run the show.