And if citizens of New Orleans who are really contemplating coming back heard that we're really intent upon making the place secure again - regardless of whether the levees held or not - then I think a rebuilding process would really take shape.

And if citizens of New Orleans who are really contemplating coming back heard that we're really intent upon making the place secure again - regardless of whether the levees held or not - then I think a rebuilding process would really take shape.

I think we lost a great deal of sympathy and support with the way in which the crisis was handled, most importantly I think when we appeared to be grasping for too much at one time instead of identifying our priorities in a much more responsible fashion.

Some 70 percent of Americans donated to Katrina victims.

New Orleans has to learn to live with water rather than in fear of water, and we need a master plan that shows us how to do this. It's so critical that we send a signal to everyone in the country that we're serious about rebuilding New Orleans.

The immediate, highest priority need, in my humble opinion, is that we build quickly the interim structures that can channel water away from population and businesses in the New Orleans area.

The question is what I wanted to do with the new life God has given me. This is the mission I want to take on.

You probably have to have redundant levee systems with canals in between them, like the Dutch have, to make sure that incoming water is channeled off to areas where you deal with it rather than have it drown you.

Venice, Italy, survives 365 days out of every year in water; New Orleans can survive a few days of water if it has to.

Invite the best and brightest to compete for a grand prize to come up with designs, including new zoning, building codes and so forth, for New Orleans that could make it safe from water, and let the state and city pick the plan that works best for Louisiana.

The timing was terrible, and having one disaster after another didn't help. I think the pictures on television of the way in which the disaster was handled also helped to turn off the public and Congress.

I think the industry finally gets it. They've lost the connection with the American public, and they've got to rebuild the trust with the American public.

I was treated with a miracle drug, just like Lance Armstrong.

This is not ice cream. These are powerful products.

We need to educate our elite coaches more and have a better approach to teaching the athletes about how to be healthy rather than berate them, humiliate them, use tactics that could scar them for life.

For me the march was a labor - a labor of love - but I was busy handing out flyers for the National Association of Black Social Workers, so I really wasn't standing in the crowd listening and observing. I was busy.

What many refer to as intuition, then, is not the untaught or unteachable but instead is a learned understanding and respect of process, molded by experience and refined over a great deal of time and practice.

Love can isolate us from everything around us. But in its absence, we can be filled with the fear that something comparable exists.

I had to relearn how to ride a horse like an ape. I had to change how I jumped off and how I gripped them with my thighs and distribute my weight differently.

I don't mind putting my heart out there for the audience, and for the country music fans... to be vulnerable with them... that's my job as an artist.

Discernment is the son of good judgment and the father of self control. When mixed with an already clear conscience the ability to read the true motives of a critic keeps ones conscience both clear and at ease.

Everything we say signifies; everything counts, that we put out into the world. It impacts on kids, it impacts on the zeitgeist of the time.

I like to see love stories: romantic comedy or romantic drama.

I was always wrapped around music being a tradition, a skill.

Tax laws favor capital over labor, giving capital gains a lower rate than ordinary income. The rich get humongous mortgage interest deductions while renters get no deduction at all.

It's a dirty little secret that I'm pretty self-conscious about coloring my own work. I just see so many people who love color more than me that I get freaked out every time I hit Photoshop. Black and white? I know exactly what to do, but color offers a million solutions to problems I don't even know exist.

I am alone; I am always alone no matter what.

I think it's time that we have a women's show about the West. The concentration has been on the men and the Indians.

I wouldn't be honest if I told you that in some moment of my life I had a lot of rage - probably hate - I'm not sure of hate, but rage. But you know what happens is that then you realize you cannot do to others what you think nobody has to do to anybody. Life is important for me and not any kind of life, quality too of life.

I spend a fair chunk of time in Los Angeles, and after about ten days of warmth and unbroken clear skies, you start to yearn for a bit of good old British gloom and rain!

I have never kept diaries. I just remember a lot and am more self-centered than most people.

Take a sound from whatever source, a note on a violin, a scream, a moan, a creaking door, and there is always this symmetry between the sound basis, which is complex and has numerous characteristics which emerge through a process of comparison within our perception.

One writes fables in periods of oppression.

The marginal cost of doing something 'just this once' always seems to be negligible, but the full cost will typically be much higher. Yet unconsciously, we will naturally employ the marginal-cost doctrine in our personal lives.

Arguments that we will never stop all shootings by restricting access to such weapons fails to account for our strong and common desire at least to stop many of them - or any of them.

We know Zika's not going to go on vacation.

As soon as someone tells me: 'You're rather sexy,' I wish I could disappear. If somebody says: 'You were voted the world's sexiest man,' I have no idea what that means. How do I respond? 'Thank you' is the best you can do. George Clooney is the world's sexiest man, anyway.

Let's just do what is right for the American people. And those of us who are involved in politics and government know that our responsibility is to the American people, that we have a responsibility to find our common ground, to seek it and to find it.