We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology.

My wife and I just prefer Seattle. It's a beautiful city. Great setting. You open your front door in the morning and the air smells like pine and the sea, as opposed to bus exhaust.

My father was a public figure all my life, and so the presidency was an extension of that. I guess you get used to it, though you can stand back occasionally and think, 'Boy, this is really weird!'

John McCain knows as well as anyone that Sarah Palin has no business being anywhere near the Oval Office. I'm sorry, it's got nothing to do with the fact that she wears skirts - she's grossly unqualified.

Relationships are complicated no matter what style of parenting you choose.

I live for my work, apart from my family who come first. And I live to tell stories and pretend to be other people, it's something I've been doing since I was 3 years old. Maybe it's because I'm intrinsically bored with myself, and I find other people more interesting. The more different they are, the bigger the challenge.

My dad's whole family is in Madras and I was born in America so we didn't have that big Indian community. I don't really have anything interesting to say about it. When I talk about it people are like, 'meh, let's talk about something else.'

My mother and father didn't know anything about instruments. Me just see a man in the country play guitar one time and say, 'My, the man play that guitar nice.'