My mother cared more about how you reasoned than about the conclusions you reached.

Speech writers are more vulnerable to vanity than any other group of people in Washington.

When you cover politics, you realize that knowing how to talk about character matters more and more. The way we hold ideas is more important than the ideas.

If you go on TV and say there's no other country in the world where you can be born poor and become rich, you get a huge megaphone. If you tell the truth, which is that most of the studies show actually the United States is worse than anybody except Britain in upward mobility, there is no audience for you.

There's nothing that symbolizes loss or grief more than a mother losing a child.

What I say is I am somebody who cares about conservative ideas. I want to see them implemented in governance.