When I say they're lunatics, that's what I'm talking about. People that think you should allow guns in day care centers, but they're protecting themselves by not allowing guns in their workplace, that would be in that category of lunatics.

It is past time for Republican leadership to answer for record deficits and reckless spending, both in Iraq and in the U.S. It's time for a plan to bring our troops home.

Republican leadership in Congress let the energy companies write the energy bill that sent prices soaring, and has turned a blind eye to the struggles of working families trying to make ends meet.

Year after year, President Bush has broken his campaign promises on college aid. And year after year, the Republican leadership in Congress has let him do it.

You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to surmise that war has a perverse appeal for the human race, nor is the attraction limited to religious fanatics committing mass murder and suicide for the greater glory of God.

As Michael Scheuer, who ran the C.I.A.'s bin Laden unit until 1999, has pointed out, if bin Laden believed in Christmas, the Iraq war would be his perfect present from Santa Claus. The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan severely damaged bin Laden's organization.

I believe that in the end the abolition of war, the maintenance of world peace, the adjustment of international questions by pacific means will come through the force of public opinion, which controls nations and peoples.

Secretary of War Stanton used to get out of patience with Lincoln because he was all the time pardoning men who ought to be shot.