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

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.

I'm not ready to give you a clear answer on whether electoral politics holds any particular hope for progressives. It would mean that nothing I did ever mattered.

I never made a damn dime until I started doing what I wanted.

Producers are not gamblers. They want a good return on their investment.

Any vehicle that conveys great songs and the ability to perform them, whether it's 'N Sync or the Backstreet Boys or One Direction, is all good.

Give the lady what she wants!

I'm hugely self-critical in the morning.

Environment is no ones property to destroy its everyones responsibility to protect.

Washington is a city that coddles up to and worships power.

Obama's failure to close Guantanamo is yet another instance where the rhetoric of democratic and constitutional rights proved not useful for his international relations, relations which are always pursued in ways that continue to link and fortify securitarian power with the opening of new markets.

Seize the day.

Love, having no geography, knows no boundaries.

I don't necessarily want people to know all my intimate feelings about Tracey.

I like to do things that are classic.

The high prices also highlight the fact that the U.S. is too heavily dependent on fossil fuels that we import from unstable parts of the world. To protect our national security, we must become more energy secure.

Live the moment. Cherish the present. Anticipate the future. Frame the yesteryear.

I think that the online world has actually brought books back. People are reading because they're reading the damn screen. That's more reading than people used to do.

Not having any real direction, one writer would lead me to another.

I float from one project to another project, so you miss people and you don't see them for years.

Humorists always sit at the childrens table.

Success is like WiFi. Found everywhere. Connected, if have a password called harwork.

I'm just trying to get rid of all the mystery surrounding me and let people see what I'm thinking. So they can understand me and stop assuming things about me.

If I have not the power to put myself in the place of other people, but must be continually burrowing inward, I shall never be the magnanimous creative person I wish to be. Yet I am hypnotized by the workings of the individual, alone, and am continually using myself as a specimen.

The biggest risk I've ever taken is going on American Idol and trying to be myself. I wasn't going to try too hard to conform, and I knew that it could possibly not work out.

I heard Yiddish when my father's family came to the house, which was as seldom as my mother could arrange it.