Robots have a rich and storied history in movies.

The thing is, Obama is right that it would be a calamity for the government to default on its debt by not meeting its obligations. Such a thing has never happened and can't be allowed to happen.

The problem is that borrowing money to pay back more borrowed money that will oblige you in the future to borrow even more money doesn't sound kosher. Because it isn't.

Romney is a good, intelligent, extraordinarily generous man who put on a great fight. But he didn't understand the country or the people he sought to lead, and that is why he lost.

Obama learned from Ronald Reagan that it helps to strike an optimistic tone. But genuine optimism deriving from American exceptionalism, it turns out, does not come naturally to him.

Your race and gender don't change, but you can choose to change your political affiliation at will.

I've worked as someone's deputy, and now it's time for me to run something. It's time for me to run my own shop.

Obama's presidency hasn't been dedicated to achieving economic growth in the short term, or about creating jobs.

Our compulsive hunger always to know first, speak first and decide first has only been amplified by the fact that we can now all participate instantly in a virtual version of a national cocktail-party conversation on Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

America may be in a dour condition, but it is not going to elect a dour president.

The defense of ObamaCare's constitutionality relies mainly on the truism that everyone is sure to get sick at some point in their lives, and this makes the health-care market unlike any other market.

What Obama is saying is simple: The United States has become Too Big To Fail.

Unquestionably, American political rhetoric can be repugnant, and the Right can certainly be as guilty as the Left.

We must say something, even when we know nothing.

If you want to know why Republicans and conservatives are in a political crisis, you need only consider the fact that the Right's deeply held view now boils down to this: Taxes should not go up on the wealthy, and your health benefits should be cut.

Obama's victory in November 2008 was a historic political accomplishment.

I guess I just process death differently than some folks. Realizing you're not going to see that person again is always the most difficult part about it. But that feeling settles, and then you are glad you had that person in your life, and then the happiness and the sadness get all swirled up inside you.

If I can make myself laugh about something that I should be crying about, that's pretty good.

Soon as I could play one guitar chord and laid my ear upon that wood, I was gone. My soul was sold. Music was everything from then on.

I take my own syrup, ketchup, and mustard, just in case of emergencies, in my suitcase. Whatever I can steal from the hotels. It's usually Heinz ketchup, and they give you a weird mustard. You don't get French's or anything; you get some sort of Dijon or some mustard. That's just for hot dogs. I don't use mustard for anything else.

I embraced loneliness as a kid. I know what loneliness is. When you're at the end of your rope. I never forget those feelings.

My sense of humor has saved me more than a couple of times in my life.

I think if you write from your own gut, you'll come up with something interesting, whereas if you sit around guessing what people want, you end up with the kind of same schlock that everybody else has got.

'The Ways of a Woman in Love' is one of my very favorite early Johnny Cash songs. I like the way the lyric talks about the character walking by the girl's house and wishing he was the one in her arms.

When I turned 40, I invited Johnny Cash to my party, even though I knew there was gonna be 200 people roasting a pig and wild as can be. He didn't come, but the next day, I got a bowl of chili he'd made and a note that said, 'John, I'd love to come to your party, but that would mean I would have to leave my house.'

I started out in the folk music world only because of the way my songs were written and performed, with just an acoustic guitar, but I always related to the rock n' roll lifestyle.

It was always difficult for me to listen to my singing voice for the first 20 years or so. I mean, I really enjoyed singing, and I enjoyed doing live shows, but being in a recording studio and having to hear my voice played back to me would really drive me up the wall.

I had a year-round Christmas tree with nothing but colored vinyl 45s hanging on it, like, old Elvis records and stuff.

I used to read a lot of Steinbeck, and I admired Roger Miller and Bob Dylan.

There is a certain comedy and pathos to trouble and accidents. Like when a driver has parked his car crookedly and then wonders why he has the bad luck of being hit.

You know that first love that leaves you? You never forget that, especially if you're a songwriter. I must have gotten nine songs out of that girl.

I don't like to see Christmas trees torn down.

I'd rather get a hot dog or a doughnut than write a song.

I thought I was grounded. I thought from my kinda blue-collar outlook on life that I would call myself a grounded person. I was not. I was like a balloon flying around in the air. And as soon as our first child was born, boom - my feet came right down to the ground.

I sound like that old guy down the street that doesn't chase you out of his apple tree.

To tell you the truth, the nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame totally surprised me. I had no idea that was coming. I know a lot of people like to say it's enough just to be nominated. But I've been nominated for so many things, I'd like to get this one. I think it's a long shot, considering I never had a No. 1 rock n' roll record.

One time, I went to school, and they asked us all to find out where our roots were. It's goin' around the class, and the kids were going, 'I'm Swedish-German' or 'I'm English-Irish.' They got to me and I said, 'Pure Kentuckian.'

I'm kind of like the Lone Ranger or Batman. I can just go to my mansion and jump out in my uniform and sing on weekends.

Kris Kristofferson and Steve Goodman were the two most unselfish people I ever met.

It doesn't hit you until you pull up to the hospital, and you see 'cancer' in big letters, and you're the patient. Then it all kind of comes home.

As far as guitar picking, if I make the same mistakes at the same time every day, people will start calling it a style.

I was in the Army in the 1960s. I didn't go to Vietnam. I went to Germany, where I drank beer. But I did have an empathy with the soldiers in Vietnam.

I could never teach a class on songwriting. I'd tell them to goof off and find a good hideout.

I wrote most of 'Hello in There' in a relay box, which looks like a mail box, only bigger. Sometimes, it was so cold and windy on my mail route that I'd go inside the relay box and eat a sandwich, just to get away from the wind. I remember working on 'Hello in There' inside the relay box.

I did three club tours before I started playing concert halls, and the clubs were half full the first time around.

It's usually drawing on personal experience. I don't think I could dig deep enough trying to get into somebody else's life. Like 'Far From Me' - I wrote it about this waitress that I was dating when I was fifteen or so, and she broke up with me.

I was a mailman walking in the snow six days a week, 12-hour days. Every two weeks, I'd get a check for $228.

I feel basically good about my career because it's remained constant. What I do has never been especially in vogue or gotten high on the charts. At the same time, I haven't had to stop performing any of my music because it aged in style.

I was kind of thrown into - I didn't expect to do this for a living, being a recording artist. I was just playing music for the fun of it and writing songs. That was kind of my escape, you know, from the humdrum of the world.

I always had an affinity for older people. I had a job delivering newspapers, and one place I had to go was an old people's home. Some people would introduce you to their neighbors as if you were a nephew or grandson. They didn't get many visitors, so they acted like you were coming to see them. And that stuck with me for a long time.