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.

There are no more new worlds. The unoccupied arable lands of the earth are limited, and will soon be taken.

The role of the teacher remains the highest calling of a free people. To the teacher, America entrusts her most precious resource, her children; and asks that they be prepared... to face the rigors of individual participation in a democratic society.

You left, and my heart is a ceaseless sermon of loneliness.

Someone who wanted to challenge Orthodoxy would not be able to locate a building to hold a protest march in front of. The faith is too diffused.

I was a good kid, but I was just very chatty. Teachers were rarely entertained, but occasionally a child was, which was enough for me. Everything was so urgent. I needed to say it immediately.

If you're funny, if there's something that makes you laugh, then every day's going to be okay.

Being slim is the new elitism. Thinness today says that you are richer, smarter and more successful than the overweight masses.

When it's something you really adore, I think you don't want to be the one who accidentally writes a crap episode.

I love a good comedy, but the slapstick sitcom belly-laugh sort of comedy - the multicam thing - is not really where my interests lie. I'm very interested in single-cam, in intimate portraits. I like it when comedies have a little bit of realism and a little bit of darkness to them. It makes them more palatable and more relatable and grounded.

I'm happy to belong to this group of top champions having excelled here.

I always feel that in politics, you have a bridle on. Well, I took the bridle off. And I tell you, it felt pretty good.

The moral values, ethical codes and laws that guide our choices in normal times are, if anything, even more important to help us navigate the confusing and disorienting time of a disaster.

I'm glad acting sunk its teeth into me, because now I can't imagine doing anything else.

Sometimes it gets boring. No justice is supposed to say that. But, you know, there's drudgery in every job you're going to do.

When I was living in New York, there was a lot of screaming in my life. I would just get into these altercations all the time. Being in public, dealing with shopkeepers, just trying to cross the street - things like that.

There is genuine Hip Hop a message that connects rocks a crowd and motivates a people and then there is what is left... instead of Hip Hop we have Hip replacement.

I most definitely would not buy the 'Daily Mail,' which pours a kind of livid torpor into the eyelids of the average Brit - I skimmed through a copy recently and couldn't believe the rubbish in it.

To give a body and a perfect form to one's thought, this - and only this - is to be an artist.

The moon is bland in color. I call it shades of gray. You know, the only color we see is what we bring or the Earth, which is looking down upon us all the time. And to find orange soil on the moon was a surprise.

So many people supported me and believed in me. They made it so easy for me to believe in myself, because I didn't want to let them down.

Everybody thinks that I did this and I did that, but I just went along with the times.

Compliments cost nothing yet many pay dear for them.

I do think about marriage, but it's not the end-all goal.

Drama is not hard for me. It just didn't seem hard.