But I think there was a sense amongst the House Republicans especially that we didn't just want to be opposed to Bill Clinton that we wanted to tell the country what we were for and to brand ourselves in a more positive manner.

I met my wife Anne who was a sociology student and her influence together with activities associated with the student movement of the time opened up my interests amongst other things into the theatre art music politics and philosophy.

When I first started working in politics as a junior aide on Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign it never occurred to me that I would one day work in the White House. There were plenty of women among the volunteers who stuffed envelopes and walked precincts. But there were fewer and fewer on each successive level of influence and access.

So poetry becomes a means for useful dialogue between people who are not only unknown but mute to each other. It produces a dialogue among people that guards all of us against manipulation by our so-called leaders.

It is the timber of poetry that wears most surely and there is no timber that has not strong roots among the clay and worms.

Perhaps there is an idea among Japanese students that one general difference between Japanese and Western poetry is that the former cultivates short forms and the latter longer ones gut this is only in part true.

Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days is being written by Southerners.

France is not poetic she even feels in fact a congenital horror of poetry. Among the writers who use verse those whom she will always prefer are the most prosaic.

Nothing is more important in the preservation of peace than to secure among the great mass of the people living under constitutional government a just conception of the rights which their nation has against others and of the duties their nation owes to others.

The United States contributes to peace in both by serving as a buffer between and among regional powers that while not preparing for armed conflict do not fully trust one another.