I wanted it not to be true. I wanted it not to be her plane. I wanted it - I wanted, if it was her plane, to have somehow survived because she was in the back of the airplane. But we know that doesn't happen, not with those sorts of things.

I immediately called the command center of the Department of Justice to let them know that my wife was on a plane that had been hijacked. I mainly wanted them know there was another hijacked plane out there.

The calls that I have received from President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the fact that there are other people that are suffering every bit as much as I am, and that our whole nation is going through a tragedy together, I think we have to think about those things.

Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples?

She said it had been hijacked shortly after takeoff. By this time, the plane had been in the air - again, I'm presuming that it took off on time - for over an hour.

My wife had taken off on a plane. Two airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center. I, of course, like any other person, felt potentially devastated, panicky a little bit.

You have to take strength from the people that love you and the people that love Barbara and the huge number of expressions of sympathy and compassion and support. That has been extremely moving.

Well, she managed to - Barbara was capable of doing practically anything if she set her mind to it. In retrospect, I'm not surprised that Barbara managed to get collect calls through.

The very idea of marriage is basic to recognition as equals in our society; any status short of that is inferior, unjust, and unconstitutional.

The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that marriage is one of the most fundamental rights that we have as Americans under our Constitution.

The plane took off at 8:10 in the morning - or that's when it was scheduled to take off. And that's when I believe it took off. I had been in my office at the Department of Justice. Someone told me that there had been the two strikes that occurred at the World Trade Center.

I wanted it not to be true. I wanted it not to be her plane. I wanted it - I wanted, if it was her plane, to have somehow survived because she was in the back of the airplane. But we know that doesn't happen, not with those sorts of things.

Every time you make a guess of what a judge is going to do... you're wrong, so I try to stay away from that.

HB2 discriminates against fellow citizens because of who they are. This law directly challenges the legitimacy of the identity of transgender persons and then compels them to deny it every time they use a public restroom.

Horrible things can happen to you, and horrible things happened to us on September 11. But if we look for love and happiness and fulfillment, we will find it.

I do believe that people of all religions have a right to build edifices or structures or places of religious worship or study where the community allows them to do it under zoning laws and that sort of thing, and that we don't want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith.

I grew up in California, and when I read that Proposition 8 was on the ballot, I was disappointed because it seemed to be inconsistent with the spirit of the state, with the independence and diversity of the frontier that California has always been.

I'd always felt from as far back as I can remember that where the issue of marriage is concerned, individuals should have the opportunity to marry and not be discriminated against.

I've been strongly opposed to racial discrimination and anything like that my whole life. Maybe it's thanks to my parents and where I grew up and that sort of thing, but particularly with gay and lesbian citizens, I've seen that people can be cruel, and it's very distressing.

The more gays and lesbians come out - the more people realize that they have a friend who's gay, which they may not have known before, and they realize this person has the same aspirations and desires and need to be committed and to be part of a community - then they become more accepting.

The right to marry is vital in society. It's a right that's older than the Bill of Rights because it goes back to the common law.

There are libertarian conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and social conservatives. I feel conservative in terms of limited government, individual responsibility, self-sufficiency - that sort of thing.

Ultimately, the reason we have a Constitution, the reason we have separation of powers, the reason we have the Fourteenth Amendment is to provide the courts with the opportunity to override the will of the people when the will of the people discriminates against a segment of our society.

Voters, whatever their political views, should rise up against politicians who want to dilute the Bill of Rights to perpetuate their tenure in office.

When politicians seek to restrict political speech, it is invariably to protect their own incumbency and avoid having to defend their policies in the marketplace of ideas.

The worst thing about being famous is the invasion of your privacy.

Sites like Funny or Die and College Humor are great, but I'd say it's appealing to 80% men and 20% women.

Now you have people in Washington who have no interest in the country at all. They're interested in their companies, their corporations grabbing Caspian oil.

A couple of weeks is a long time in American politics.

As covetousness is the root of all evil, so poverty is the worst of all snares.

I'm terrible with my workout regime and following it strictly. I'm terrible with a healthy diet and following it strictly. I'm terrible on the weekends about getting up at reasonable hours and all of those things. But, when it comes to my work and the discipline it takes to get to work on time - I hate unprofessionalism.

I used to lie between cool, clean sheets at night after I'd had a bath, after I had washed my hair and scrubbed my knuckles and finger-nails and teeth. Then I could lie quite still in the dark with my face to the window with the trees in it, and talk to God.

Research is of considerable importance in certain fields, such as science and history.

What I think is highly inappropriate is what's going on across the Internet, a kind of political jihad against Dan Rather and CBS News that's quite outrageous.

I refuse to dress 'hot' for Halloween, 'cause I always have to have makeup and hair and look cute for my job. So on Halloween, I either go gory or weird or funny.

It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all in which case you fail by default.

It were not best that we should all think alike it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.

Nurses are humans by birth and heroes by choice.

That is the consolation of a little mind you have the fun of changing it without impeding the progress of mankind.

I would have been a disastrous soldier.

In the draft plan, we're looking at recycling 20 percent of our garbage by 2010.

I remember the moment when it hit me. I was walking down Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, and it felt like I was literally walking out of a jail cell that I had been in. At that moment, I realized I could shave if I wanted. It was up to me and no one else.

An evidence that our will has been broken is that we begin to thank God for that which once seemed so bitter, knowing that His will is good and that, in His time and in His way, He is able to make the most bitter waters sweet.

Human nature is just about the only nature some people experience.

It is of great importance, when we begin to practice meditation, not to let ourselves be frightened by our own thoughts.

Making a movie with people of all different ethnicity, all different skin color and different backgrounds, meant that the movie can literally play all around the world. It's not just a blanket whitewash film like most Hollywood films tend to be.

Audiences make their minds up about people they see on screen, just like they do in real life. That's what fascinates me in film. You see a character and have to think: is this person different to what I assumed he was when I first saw him?

I think the Dutch certainly get British comedy. And let's face it; a lot of it is pretty low-hanging fruit for the whole world now. There are probably tribes in the heart of the Papua New Guinean rainforest that know all the words to the Dead Parrot sketch.

You cannot expect to stay on the right path if you are walking with the wrong people.