People talk about the conscience but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.

If the First Amendment means anything it means that a state has no business telling a man sitting alone in his house what books he may read or what films he may watch.

Can anyone understand how it is to have lived in the White House and then suddenly to be living alone as the President's widow?

I don't like being in houses alone.

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen only wait. Do not even wait be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking it can do no other in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I'd sit all day and way into the night. Up in front there with the screen so big a little kid all alone and I loved it. I loved anything that moved up there and I didn't miss anything that happened and there was no popcorn either.

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent of human knowledge that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

If you love somebody you love them. My parents had a 25-year age gap between them and my mum was the breadwinner my dad the house husband. I'm a strong believer that a good relationship can work whatever the situation.

I grew up on a farm in a small town where you do or say one thing and everybody knows about it. You see it happen there's always the town gossip - 'Oh did you hear about so and so or did you hear what went on in this household?' So I learned at a very young age just to keep my mouth shut.

I could always sing from a really young age but my voice was really weird. I used to make my mum turn up the radio every day in our house. She was well into music so I got that from her.

I've an enormous respect for my mother who at the age of 39 raised three children and I grew up with my grandmother in the household. And so it was a really strong household of women - my poor brother! It was great growing up with so many generations of women.

Bring a wife home to your house when you are of the right age not far short of 30 years nor much above this is the right time for marriage.

The answer to old age is to keep one's mind busy and to go on with one's life as if it were interminable. I always admired Chekhov for building a new house when he was dying of tuberculosis.