There are no bad seats at the cabinet table.

It was surprising to me to hear a member question whether another member of the House was an adult. We're all adults in the House of Commons, and I think it diminishes us all to suggest otherwise.

Sprawling, earnest, and ambitious - its modest title is 'The Future' - Al Gore's new book embodies both the virtues and the flaws of its author. But those hardy souls who slog past the weaknesses will be rewarded by a book that is brave, original and often fun.

Shipping middle-class jobs to China, or hollowing them out with machines, is a win for smart managers and their shareholders. We call the result higher productivity. But, looked at through the lens of middle-class jobs, it is a loss.

Worrying about the poor is one thing. To contend that equality is necessary for growth is an altogether different and more radical idea.

In a globalized economy, jobs no longer need a passport, but workers do.

Creating jobs for your country's workers is about much more than ensuring that the balance sheets of your country's companies are strong, or stimulating domestic demand. It is about figuring out how your country's workers fit into the global economy.

The hollowing out of the middle class is a problem common to all Western industrialized economies. Maybe we should work together to solve it.

Our battle over the size of the state overlooks a problem that is just as important and that may be easier to muster the collective will to resolve: how effective government is, regardless of its scale.

All of us can agree that we want government to work as well as possible, and we should all applaud efforts to improve it. But there is no escaping the divisive and essential questions: What is the purpose of the state, and whom does it serve?

Reagan's legacy is so powerful because he identified the state as the central issue in American politics.

The economic reality is that, thanks to smart machines and global trade, the well-paying, middle-class jobs that were the backbone of Western democracies are vanishing.

Slavery is America's original sin and was the great global injustice of that age.

I see social mobility and equality of opportunity as really successful Canadian values.

The irony of the political rise of the plutocrats is that, like Venice's oligarchs, they threaten the system that created them.

A general charge of crony capitalism is easy to make. But dividing the 'bad' crony capitalists from the 'good' innovative entrepreneurs is much harder to do. And sorting them out without creating a new group of crony capitalists may be the hardest thing of all.

We are all living in a world shaped by Reagan and his ideology of small 'l' liberalism.

Living as we do in the age of Facebook, we shouldn't be surprised that some countries are starting to imagine themselves more as social networks than as a physical place.

Don't let the same dog bite you twice.

In a Toyota, the cops don't think about stopping you so much.

It's amazing how much you can learn if your intentions are truly earnest.

Charlie Christian played amplified guitar with Benny Goodman's quartet. He was the greatest guitar player that ever was. But he never looked up from the guitar. But I put a little dance to it. They appreciate seein' something along with hearin' something.

Rock's so good to me. Rock is my child and my grandfather.

I just feel I got my inspiration, education and all from others that came before me. And I added my... I don't even know if I added anything. I played what they played, and it sounded different, I guess.

I grew up thinking art was pictures until I got into music and found I was an artist and didn't paint.

Of the five most important things in life, health is first, education or knowledge is second, and wealth is third. I forget the other two.

I would sing the blues if I had the blues.

I'm thankful for each and every day. We never know when time is up.

I directed my music to the teen-agers. I was 30 years old when I did 'Maybellene.' My school days had long been over when I did 'School Day,' but I was thinking of them.

Praise doesn't mean anything to me. I don't judge myself.

If you want to release your aggression, get up and dance. That's what rock and roll is all about.

I love poetry. I love rhyming. Do you know, there are poets who don't rhyme? Shakespeare did not rhyme most of the time, and that's why I do not like him.

I should have been a son of Einstein.

What the heck is a king? I'm a cog in the wheel.

The media dresses things up. There's a lot of inaccuracy.

The Man Upstairs is taking care of me.

I made records for people who would buy them. No color, no ethnic, no political - I don't want that, never did.

The Big Band Era is my era. People say, 'Where did you get your style from?' I did the Big Band Era on guitar. That's the best way I could explain it.

A song is a song. But there are some songs, ah, some songs are the greatest. The Beatles song 'Yesterday.' Listen to the lyrics.

That's all there was in our house: poetry and choir rehearsal and duets and so forth; I listened to Dad and Mother discuss things about poetry and delivery and voice and diction - I don't think anyone could know how much it really means.

My first job at Gleason's Bar in Cleveland was $800 a week, when I was making $92 a week with overtime at the automobile plant.

I wanted to play blues. But I wasn't blue enough. I wasn't like Muddy Waters, people who really had it hard. In our house, we had food on the table. We were doing well compared to many. So I concentrated on this fun and frolic, these novelties.

Music is science. Everything is science. Because science is truth.

It's not me to toot my horn. The minute you toot your horn, it seems like society will try and disconnect your battery. And if you do not toot your horn, they'll try their darnedest to give you a horn to toot, or say that you should have a horn.

A contract is an ask game, and if it asks for an hour, and I submit to an hour, then it's an hour. When I look at a contract, I look at the obligation - where, when, how long, the compensation. If I agree to it, that's the way it is. I have an obligation. They have an obligation.

Had I been pushed like Colonel Parker pushed Elvis, had I been a white boy like Elvis, sure, it would have been different.

Music should be made to make people forget their problems, if only for a short while.

In a way, I feel it might be ill-mannered to try and top myself. The music I play is a ritual. Something that matters to people in a special way. I wouldn't want to interfere with that.

In the Fifties, there were certain places we couldn't ride on the bus, and now there is a possibility of a black man being in the White House. You have to feel good about it.

You know, your ears record. You might can sing a song once you hear it.