Let me make three brief points. First, Active-Duty servicemembers will — John McCain

"Here is a small idea: Why dont we see what the school lunch program is in our local schools? Why dont we see what the physical education requirements are in our local school districts? Why dont parents do that? I was appalled, and I am sure my colleagues and all Americans were, to see recently there is one State in America where one-third of the population suffers from obesity. We know what obesity does to health care costs, not to mention the lives of individuals. Why dont we also look at what has been tried and done before: an outcome treatment of patients. A patient has diabetes. You pay that provider for 6 months or a year or 2 years and say: OK, here is the amount of money, and if you keep that patient well, you will receive a reward at the end of that treatment period, rather than to pay for every single test and procedure."

"After a while, we must have thought the distance between our desks too great for either of us to hear each other clearly or that the presence of the clerk transcribing our exchange had become too distracting. And as if we had both heard some secret signal, we set down our microphones simultaneously and walked briskly to the well of the floor, where we could continue in closer quarters, and in language perhaps too…familiar…to be recorded for posterity, which, regrettably was still audible enough to be overheard by a few reporters, who were now leaning over the railing of the press gallery trying to ascertain just what the hell was going on between McCain and Kennedy. After we both were satisfied we had sufficiently impressed upon each other the particulars of proper senatorial comportment, we ended our discussion, and returned to the business that had brought us to the chamber in the first place. And, Im happy to report, we succeeded in discouraging our colleagues from continuing their intemperate argument. They both had deserted the chamber with, I was later told, for I did not notice their escape, rather puzzled if not frightened looks on their faces."

"Maybe 100. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, its fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day."

"I have a clear record, both publicly and privately, of saying Alito and Roberts are what we want on the Supreme Court."

"I work in Washington and I know that money corrupts. And I and a lot of other people were trying to stop that corruption. Obviously, from what weve been seeing lately, we didnt complete the job. But I would rather have a clean government than one where First Amendment rights are being respected that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, Id rather have the clean government."

"Now he’s back to declaring himself a maverick, but it’s not clear what that means. If he gains the presidency, is he going to rebel against the base he’s now depending on to get him elected? (Hence his selection of running mate Sarah Palin.) Campaigns matter. If he means "shaking up the system" (which is not the same thing), opposing earmarks doesn’t cut it. McCain’s recent conduct of his campaign – his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition – has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man. In fact, it’s not clear who he is."

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."

"we are engaged in a grim experiment never before attempted. We are subjecting whole populations to exposure to chemicals which animal experiments have proved to be extremely poisonous and in many cases cumulative in their effect. These exposures now begin at or before birth and-unless we change our methods-will continue through the lifetime of those now living. No one knows what the result will be, because we have no previous experience to guide us."

"pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease: your victim (death and life safely beyond) plays with the bigness of his littleness"

"I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence; he is aware of others as others; man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought."

"“We need brains, is the bottom line,” Ivy said. “We’re not hunter-gatherers anymore. We’re all living like patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital. What keeps us alive isn’t bravery, or athleticism, or any of those other skills that were valuable in a caveman society. It’s our ability to master complex technological skills. It is our ability to be nerds. We need to breed nerds.”"

"I have been clinically depressed for most of my life. I once used drugs to fix it. Then I stopped. I stopped because I decided they were making me stupid, and Id rather be miserable than stupid. I am what I am."