I am looking forward to learning at the knee of Paul Ryan. He doesn't strike me as a politician. He strikes me as an economist.

You can't tell me that all the wars we are fighting are in America's national security interest.

I hope I don't have to buck the system. But if it requires bucking, I will do it.

The economy is terrible it's been terrible for years now, and the reason it's bad is not because of a debt-ceiling vote. The reason it's bad is because we have people who believe that by making government bigger by keeping people on unemployment checks and on welfare we're going to dig us out of this mess.

Ideology that believes government is bad, and that public institutions and places are not valuable, is as destructive as corporate greed.

The idea that the law should punish what is rude; that government should protect our tender sensibilities from those who would - quite often with shallow motivations but sometimes with deeper and more serious complaints - challenge our national certainties and rituals, should alarm and anger us.

While American intellectual property deserves protection, that protection must be won and defended in a manner that does not stifle innovation, erode due process under the law, and weaken the protection of political and civil rights on the Internet.

All art is political in the sense that it serves someone's politics.