Tonight we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation - not because of the height of our skyscrapers or the power of our military or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.

This revolution the information revoultion is a revolution of free energy as well but of another kind: free intellectual energy. It's very crude today yet our Macintosh computer takes less power than a 100-watt bulb to run it and it can save you hours a day. What will it be able to do ten or 20 years from now or 50 years from now?

I kept my age quiet for a good few years. I didn't see it as a positive. I worked remotely so I just didn't tell people.

The pace of technological change in recent years has been both impressive and positive for consumers.

Even though I'm retired for some years now I still have something positive to say to kids. And they still listen.

It gets kinda monotonous but that's television. There are plus sides and down sides. The positive side is that you have steady work for nine months of the year for however many years your show is on TV .

But nobody is listening to those points. They are just listening to the gossip which is saying that I knew I was positive for all these years because I had a faked test a few years ago.

With what all these people are saying do you think that anybody wants to be around me? They all think that I did this on purpose? That I knew that I was positive for so many years? I feel now that I'm going to be attacked if anybody sees me or if I go to the office.

I spent two years in the Army. And my older brother who was also a great positive influence on me encouraged me to think about law school and I said - well I didn't have any money.

I had the idea for the show like a year and a half two years ago. And it was all about the things that I didn't like about TV. I was trying to create a positive solution for it. And it actually worked.

We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders since some 500 000 to 600 000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.

I think Gadhafi is on the mark. And up until this point in time I think they truly want to turn this around and become a positive player with the West after years and years of terrorism and stagnation.

I had many teachers that were great positive role models and taught me to be a good person and stand up and be a good man. A lot of the principals they taught me still affect how I act sometimes and it's 30 years later.

I've been singing for six years. I've been in and out of the studios with top producers but it wasn't something I was ready to express to the public or to the press. I wasn't ready to come out. I wanted to perfect my voice and be 100 percent positive that I could come out right.

Every person has only so much attention to give and politics and government takes up only a fraction of what it did 25 years ago.

When you're young with less on the line it's easier to be audacious to experiment. So I introduced the concerns of my generation - politics sex drugs rock-and-roll etc. - to the comics page which for many years caused a rolling furor.

About 25 years ago I started out as a reporter covering politics. And that sort of just evolved into organized crime because organized crime and politics were the same thing in Boston.

I've done reasonably well over the last 10 years because I took the strategy of language and politics and applied it to the corporate world which has never been done before.

Please don't ask me any questions about the politics of 30 years ago.

Well you know what I'm 60 years old and I've been interested in politics since I was on my daddy's knee. During the 1948 election we were praying for Truman. I know a lot about politics.

I cry sometimes because I'm not 20 years younger and I'm not healthy. But if I were I would even sacrifice my writing to enter politics.

George Clooney's 'Ides of March' could be the most under-appreciated movie of the year. In 20 years they're gonna go back and say 'Oh that was American politics in that time period.' I follow politics I love it and that movie is so authentic.

I was in elective politics for 24 years. I've made four national races two for President two for Vice President. I have found there are other ways to serve and I'm enjoying them.

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent scurrilous wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country - and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.