I think the personal relationships I established mattered in terms of what I was able to get done. And I did bring women's issues to the center of our foreign policy.

If you ask an economist what's driven economic growth it's been major advances in things that mattered - the mechanization of farming mass manufacturing things like that. The problem is our society is not organized around doing that.

The only thing that mattered was what you were to do in life and it wasn't about money. It was about teaching or learning.

The only thing I hope I did was never put in question my love for the game or my passion to be counted on when it mattered most.

We see tremendous excitement from small-business people about the administration and about the attention and commitment that the president has to do things that really make a difference. I think they recognize that health care is one of those. I think they recognize that what we've been doing in the Recovery Act with our loan programs has mattered.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.