I'm on a mission. And I know the older I get I may lose a step or two but it's all up in the medulla oblongata. I've got a lot up there. I've got a lot of knowledge... in this medulla oblongata.

It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission.

There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission. They are possessed with the sin of pride they have yielded to the perennial temptation.

I want to improve TSA's counterterrorism focus through intelligence and cutting edge technology support the TSA workforce and strengthen the agency's relationships with stakeholders and the traveling public. All of these priorities are interconnected and are vital to TSA's mission - and I would say all of our collective mission.

The 9/11 Commission strongly recommends that the National Intelligence Director be fully in control of the budget from developing it to implementing it to ensuring that the National Intelligence Director has the clout to make decisions.

I can tell you that the Canadian intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been providing outstanding co-operation with our intelligence and law enforcement agencies as we work together to track down terrorists here in North America and put them out of commission.

In the aftermath of September 11 and as the 9/11 Commission report so aptly demonstrates it is clear that our intelligence system is not working the way that it should.

Richard Hugo taught me that anyone with a desire to write an ear for language and a bit of imagination could become a writer. He also in a way gave me permission to write about northern Montana.

A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins or nearly all save those worth committing.

Hope is the greatest thing for moms of autism. Hope is what gets us out of bed in the morning. I'm on a mission to tell parents that there is a way.

I am not suggesting that all those missionary organizations working in Haiti should pack up and go home but I am urging them to understand that Haiti does not need clever Americans with newly contrived schemes for saving their country.

I stand before you as the governor of Texas but also stand before you the son of two tenant farmers. Ray Perry who came home after 35 bombing missions over Europe to work his little corner of land out there and Amelia who made sure that my sister Milla and I had everything that we needed included hand sewing my clothes until I went off to college.

Asking the author of historical novels to teach you about history is like expecting the composer of a melody to provide answers about radio transmission.

I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot.

But when one believes that you've been appointed by God for a particular mission in history you have to be very careful about that how you speak about that. Where is the self-reflection in that? Where is the humility in that?

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined permanently blocked as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.

ACT and SAT each have their own parts of the country. The GRE has its lock on graduate admissions. And so one could blame the companies but really economically they have no incentive to change things very much because they're getting the business.