The greatest pleasure of life is love.

She never envisioned a legal career for me but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me.

Today the people from my State of Tennessee would listen to this debate or even talk about a reference to God on our money or in the Halls of Congress or in our Pledge and say please let common sense and logic win the day and prevail versus legal mumbo jumbo.

I discovered that in a story I could safely dream any dream hope any hope go anywhere I pleased any time I pleased fight any foe win or lose live or die. My stories created a safe experimental learning place.

For 'So Cold the River ' I'm actually working on adapting the book with Scott Silver who was just nominated for an Oscar for 'The Fighter ' and who also wrote '8 Mile ' which I think is a terrific screenplay. The chance to work with Scott is a tremendous pleasure and I'm learning a lot.

I'm pleased to say my knee feels a lot better. It's still not back to normal and I don't know if it ever will be but I'm learning to deal with it instead of expecting it to be like it was before.

Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment.

Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples - where I'm pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping The Sports Authority which became a favorite of my sons. We started an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised.

There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves no matter how unpleasant are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn whatever steps we take they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.

The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that you're in control of your life. If you don't life controls you.