A tough lesson in life that one has to learn is that not everybody wishes you well.

Real leadership means tackling tough problems ourselves and not leaving them to our children.

In the military I learned that 'leadership' means raising your hand and volunteering for the tough important assignments.

Leadership demands that we make tough choices.

Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you've got.

Here's the teaching point if you're teaching kids about intelligence and policy: Intelligence does not absolve policymakers of responsibility to ask tough questions and it doesn't absolve them of having curiosity about the consequences of their actions.

Despite our very recent appearance on the planet humanity combines arrogance with increasing material demands even as we become more numerous. Our toughness is a delusion. Have we the intelligence and discipline to vigilantly guard against our tendency to grow without limit?

Because of my faith and my imagination I was able to enjoy my childhood even though it was tough.

I wouldn't say that I've had a tough life by any stretch of the imagination.

But it was this tough little character part that I was playing a very funny little guy that I invented over a weekend because I realized I was not contributing to the humor of this thing. And I had to do something.