Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.

For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

My own ambitions were eclectic. My father ran a steel plant, and I was expected to study metallurgy and end up at the steel plant when I finished high school at age 15. Despite my proficiency at science, I decided against it and instead went on to study filmmaking.

Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age?

I always knew from books and shows that the lives of circus artists are not easy, but spending time and learning from them made me realise the amount of effort they put in and how they constantly jostle between life and death.

I grew up in poverty and my mother had to sacrifice a lot for us to eat and get an education - just imagine in a house where we were more than six children! But hard work and dedication is what it took for me to be here today.