None of us, no matter how perfect, can claim that the building of a new society and the marshalling of a former liberation movement into a modern political party all happen in a straight line.

If we avail ourselves to serve in terms of the Constitution, we should be prepared if, indeed, those we serve deem it appropriate to suffer the hardship that comes with our constitutional obligations.

Criminality is always the result of poverty. Countries that experience such a fundamental change as we have - we had the apartheid regime and must now develop a multicultural democracy - must necessarily pass through a phase of high crime rates.

People are constantly applying double standards. Take the United States, for example. Washington wants the whole world to admire the country for its democracy. Then the government sends out its army, in the name of this democracy, and leaves behind the kind of chaos we see in Iraq.

I'm quite content to spend my life helping young people find themselves. I've had my fill of politics.

America had the message of freedom and democracy, but we haven't actually shown that to be what we do in the world. So I think that's a terrifying thing.

I loved Gwyneth Paltrow in 'The Royal Tenenbaums' and Reese Witherspoon in 'Election.' I love quirky films and characters like that.

I stand before you today because this vision of government as the engine of opportunity is what I believe in.