Our learning ought to be our lives' amendment and the fruits of our private study ought to appear in our public behavior.

I didn't go to film school so my learning was done out in public and showed up on the screen.

In many ways it was much much harder to get the first book contract. The hardest thing probably overall has been learning not to trust people publicists and so forth implicitly.

Public office is supposed to be a public trust. This is a clear sign of the rampant corruption at the highest levels of the Republican leadership.

House Republican leadership have refused to allow a clean minimum wage vote. Close to 15 million Americans will be affected if we did this. Do Republicans really expect a family to live on less than $11 000 a year?

The public sector certainly includes the Department of Labor. Those are jobs that are available. They are open and they are good paying jobs. The government as a whole has been actually retrenching under President Clinton's leadership.

The truth is the Republican leadership has created a credit card Congress that is recklessly selling out the future of America our children and our grandchildren and President Bush is the most fiscally irresponsible President in the history of America.

This Congress is simply not doing its job under Republican leadership.

It is sad that the Republican leadership is not as interested as they say they are in protecting the institution of marriage as they are in waging a campaign to divide and distract the American people from the real issues that need to be addressed.

I think that if Republicans are given the reins of leadership in the House or Senate or both we will have to govern in a way - at least put forward solutions whether or not the president goes along with them or not that deal with these long-term challenges.