I'm a kibitzer with a broad portfolio.

We have to deal with the world as we find it. The world of what it takes to get this done.

The place where we don't agree is on whether there should be some restraint on insurance companies and whether they should be allowed to run wild. We believe there should be some restraint; some on the other side don't think so.

The truth is that as we move forward, if one side says we can't raise any taxes on anybody or any interest, and the other side says we can't cut anything, we're obviously not going to make progress on this. And our interest is in making progress on this.

We know that 10 million more people will lose insurance in the next 10 years if we don't act.

The fact is if we do our job right, if we keep worrying not about polls but about the jobs of the American people, about their health care, about their ability to educate their kids, stay in their homes and own their homes, send their kids to college, the basic pillars of a middle-class life, if we keep worrying about the future and building a stronger future for this country, these things will take care of themselves.

I haven't given up on working... across the aisle on issues and maybe it'll take an election or two for that to fully ferment, maybe it you know sometimes it takes awhile for people to realize what the best path is.

But we are not going to stand by and go back to allowing people with preexisting conditions to be discriminated against, go back to the situation where people can be thrown off their insurance simply because they become seriously ill or you can't get on your parents' insurance after the age of 20.

I came to the conclusion months ago, and I said it to members of Congress, that the only way people are going to fully appreciate what this reform is if we pass it and implement it and it becomes not a caricature but a reality, and I still believe that. So I think it will be easier to sell it moving forward than it was to this point.

If you look at the themes that he struck from the minute he started running for president through today, there is a very high level of consistency, and there is a sense that he is who he is. Obama's governing is completely consistent with the way he campaigned and the themes on which he campaigned, the issues he highlighted, the vision he shared.

I'm a kibitzer with a broad portfolio.

But obviously, we're looking for all good ideas to help deal with our long-term debt problem. This is something that is going to affect our economy. It affects our kids. And we need to deal with it.

We've got ballots flying around, being counted by hand, arriving by truck and in God knows whose custody.

We can't have - we can't have a patchwork of 50 states developing their own immigration policy. I understand the frustration of people in Arizona. They want the federal government to step up and deal with this problem once and for all, and that's what we want to do.

Two years before the last election you nor anyone else would have predicted that Barack Obama was going to get elected president of the United States.

You know, we - if, for example, Jerry Brown can withstand, you know, what will probably end up being $200 million of spending by his opponent and get elected governor of California, that will be a big victory in the nation's largest state.

This ought to be a season for cooperation in terms of pushing our economy forward, job creation, steadying the middle class, and laying the groundwork for a better future. And that's what we want to work on with Republicans and Democrats.

No one wants to go back to a situation where, if you have a pre-existing medical condition, you, you can be deprived of coverage. No one wants to go back to a situation where, if you get seriously ill, you can get thrown off your insurance. Seniors don't want to go back to paying more for their prescription drugs.

Now, China, India have set goals. We're going to be able to review what they're doing. We're going to be able to challenge them if they don't meet those goals. We're going to pursue this anyway, because the President understands that our future lies with a clean energy economy. We've doubled renewables this year. There are millions of jobs to be had there, more energy security, so we're going to pursue this.

I think President Obama is a committed, practicing nonideologue. He's consumed by neither tactics nor ideology. He is more concerned about outcomes than he is about process and categorizations.

I have never believed in the Wizard of Oz theory of consulting, that I am all-knowing and all-seeing, and that everyone around me is kind of a backbencher.

But you say, does it represent change? The change is that we are fighting an insurance industry that has killed health reform for generations. They're spending tens of millions of dollars right now to defeat this bill, and we're on the doorstep of winning a great victory for the American people.

I see my job simply as helping disseminate the message of Barack Obama, working with the communications team to make sure that we're true to the ideals and the values and the programs that he wants to advance in this country. And that's the extent of my involvement.

I think that more and more you're going to see people of good will on their side of the aisle say you know what, we got to get off the bus here, this is not headed in the right direction.

This marketplace where people can buy insurance who don't have it today - a competitive marketplace: That's an idea that both sides embrace.

People understand we're on the doorstep of doing something really historic that will help the American people and strengthen our country for the long run.

Any time you have loose ballots, you have to worry about shenanigans. It's a shame such a hard-fought election has to come down to something like this.

We don't want to go back to the same policies and the same practices that drove our economy into a ditch, that punished the middle class, and that led us to this catastrophe. We have to keep moving forward.

Far be it from me to denigrate Senator McCain's advice on vice presidential nominees.

Listen, I have a great affection and respect for Joe Biden. I think he's been a great vice president. He's taken on a lot of tough assignments for our administration.

Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.

I still go to Disneyland as much as I can. The Haunted Mansion is my favorite ride.

Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.

Being on 'Whitney' is a job, but stand-up is my life. I could never stop. There's an art to it. I love having strangers laugh with me, so as long as I can continue doing that, I'll be happy. Working on a show and collectively sharing ideas with a cast is great, but stand-up is my first love.

To me, there are two types of celebrity: there's good celebrity - people that are attracted to the food and working and trying to create something great - and then there's bad celebrity - those who are working on being a celebrity.

I mean, if you're being directed very precisely by somebody who has admiration and who's really smart, it's great. If you're being told what to do by a nincompoop - and luckily that hasn't happened very often - it can be very frustrating.

I don't try to be sexy, but if you are sexy it comes out. If you're not, you're not.

The very fact that you are a complainer shows that you deserve your lot.

I'm against spending money to record.

When all actions are mathematically calculated, they also take on a stupid quality.

I am a Christian. I haven't really talked about that before. It is something very private. But I do pray and my beliefs are very important to me.

I was rather foolish in saying that I did not like arithmetic and to learn figures when I did - I was not thinking quite what I was about. The sums can be done better, if I tried, than they are.

Supermarket tabloids and celebrity gossip shows are not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a fundamental part of a much larger movement that involves apathy, greed and hierarchy.

Failure is an attitude, not an outcome.

There is no intrinsic worth in money but what is alterable with the times, and whether a guinea goes for twenty pounds or for a shilling, it is the labor of the poor and not the high and low value that is set on gold or silver, which all the comforts of life must arise from.

Sometimes it's good to do something that you've never done before, so yesterday, I went out to buy Elton John's new album.

Not what we experience, but how we perceive what we experience, determines our fate.

Relish being an oddball: Well-behaved, well-adjusted people are hopeless storytellers and, honestly, terribly boring.

We know a great deal more about the causes of physical disease than we do about the causes of physical health.