A job is the best cure for poverty, and that's why economic development and job creation has been my principle focus.

There's a learning curve to understanding how the Senate operates.

As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, my first priority is to ensure the readiness of our military.

I pledge to the people of Alabama to continue the same level of leadership as Jeff Sessions in consistently fighting to protect and advance the conservative values we all care about.

We are a nation of innovators and problem-solvers who sparked revolutions in democratic government, civil rights, communications, flight, rural electrification and technology. We are a country defined by ideals now in need of rescue.

One's politics are part of one even when one is writing. But if I want to say anything about the state of civil society, I will write an essay. The responsibilities you feel as a novelist are literary ones, I think, not civic ones. And I think politicians are interesting to write about.

And we're in the middle of a 'perfect storm.' These days, government social services are being bad-mouthed and defunded. The non-profit world is looking more and more like the for-profit world. The growing gap between rich and poor makes most of us very anxious about where we stand.

I know I have a caption that I'm going to use when somebody tells me something I've never heard before. It's very rarely a thought, a philosophy, when somebody says, 'Oh, I don't like cheese' or 'Oh, I think the government should be overthrown,' because so many people share these thoughts. But what people don't share is stories.