And if you do all you can, that's all you can ever do.

Everyone is going to have to step up to the plate.

It was a bad idea, because I think that any government reorganization has to come in relatively small bites, or else you get indigestion.

We have to make a determination of what the minimum standards are for police, fire and emergency services in all of America's major cities. Once we determine that, then we can decide what the funding is.

And if you do all you can, that's all you can ever do.

Washington, D.C., has a much greater risk than Manchester, N.H. They both need some level of funding, but they ought not to be done per capita. Congress is to blame for some of this.

The president's very right about one thing: When you have a disaster of that scale, whether it be natural or a terrorist attack, there's only one part of our entire government, state or local, that is equipped to handle it, and that's the U.S. military.

And they will tell you unequivocally that if we have a chemical or biological attack or a nuclear attack anywhere in this country, they are unprepared to deal with it today, and that is of high urgency.

Well, it's taken a long time to get the Department of Homeland Security established. It's taken a long time for the Congress to decide how much it wanted to fund.

The two things that could have been better is number one, to get major military force into the community almost immediately to make sure that there was law and order. Number two, we had enough helicopters to airlift food into the centers of population and those places.

If there were a major earthquake in Los Angeles, with bridges and highways and railroads and airports all shut down and huge buildings collapsing, I don't care how much planning you do, the first 72 hours is going to be chaotic.

If you have a major disaster involving hundreds of thousands, or in this case millions of people, whether it be a natural disaster or an act of terrorism, the first 72 hours are going to be totally chaotic no matter what you plan to do.

We tend to pay attention to that which is the most current on our radar screen.

This may sound trite, but bad things happen to good people, and when you're facing terrorism, natural disaster, you can have every wonderful plan in place, but I am a realist.

The other thing about FEMA, my understanding is that it was supposed to move into the Department of Homeland Security... and be what it was, but also having a lot of lateral communication with all those others involved in that issue of homeland security.

Significant steps have been taken since 9-11 to protect out country here at home, but much remains to be done, Americans from across the political spectrum must come together to develop the next phase of our efforts to counter global terror.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.

Nobody's a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better.

12 of people with glasses wear them as an attempt to see better. 88 of people with glasses wear them as an attempt to appear smarter.

Live each moment in a rampage of appreciation.

Structure is one of the things that I always hope will reveal itself to me.

Siblings children of the same parents each of whom is perfectly normal until they get together.

Climate change, in some regions, has aggravated conflict over scarce land, and could well trigger large-scale migration in the decades ahead. And rising sea levels put at risk the very survival of all small island states. These and other implications for peace and security have implications for the United Nations itself.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

I would have to have people totally committed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of this United States. And many of the Muslims, they are not totally dedicated to this country. They are not dedicated to our Constitution. Many of them are trying to force Sharia law on the people of this country.

Girls don't really recognize me on the street. No one has tried to serenade me or rip my shirt off.

History creates comprehensibility primarily by arranging facts meaningfully and only in a very limited sense by establishing strict causal connections.

Contentment has been worn as a crown by no end of sleepy heads.

Will is the dynamic soul force.

Moonshot thinking starts with picking a big problem: something huge, long existing, or on a global scale.

Number four, we're going to play like winners, play the game the way it's meant to be played. Don't get full of yourself if something good happens. Don't get too depressed when something bad happens.

A lot of people get impatient with the pace of change.

I believe in professionalism, but playing is not like a job. You have to be grateful to have the opportunity to play.

On a practical level I'm a TV producer and storyteller who's gone about as long as you can go without achieving a mass audience.

There are so many stories to tell in the worlds of science fiction, the worlds of fantasy and horror that to confine yourself to even doing historical revisionist fiction, whatever you want to call it - mash-ups, gimmick lit, absurdist fiction - I don't know if I want to do that anymore.

No matter how old a mother is she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.

My desk faces the water, and I'm perfectly happy sitting there. I'm never lonely.

If a man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided that happens otherwise if one is idle.

I was in Estonia when a professor asked me if I was aware that making any criticism of the Red Army during the war was now an imprisonable offence. I was quite shaken.