I, for one, struggle a little bit with a $250,000 education for a philosophy degree. They are a wonderful people, but we can't employ philosophers in manufacturing in the United States. We need a one- or two-year technical add-on for a high school.

We're going to have to raise revenues in some form or fashion, and we're going to have to cut spending, including entitlements of all kind, including the military. We all know this. Lets get on with it.

Why is Caterpillar bad if we create a new job in India or China to receive U.S. exports? It makes no sense to me. We want to drive all the exports we can from the United States. We want to concentrate on all those consumers, outside contractors, customers outside the United States that we possibly can.

I always try to communicate to our people that we can never make enough money. We can never make enough profit.

If what you know and what you love are the same thing, that's great. But if not, write what you love. I love history, secrets, conspiracies, action, adventure, international settings.

I don't especially like to travel, not the way many people do. I know many people that love to go to far-off and different places, and I've never been like that. I seem to get homesick as quickly as a child.

I sit here as the first African-American attorney general, serving the first African-American President of the United States. And that has to show that we have made a great deal of progress. But there's still more we have to travel along this road so we get to the place that is consistent with our founding ideals.

I used to write travel essays, and I was struck by how the fact of writing about a place would change my relationship with it. I would make completely different choices, do things I wouldn't have normally, because I had to fill this narrative shape.