I have learned that raising children is the single most difficult thing in the world to do. It takes hard work, love, luck, and a lot of energy, and it is the most rewarding experience that you can ever have.

Our challenge is to remind ourselves that we do have common interest, common grounds, and common dreams.

Diversity is valued, and it is prized. We learn to appreciate each other and each other's struggles. From diversity, we draw our enormous and our lasting strength.

If you have a good community behind you and a good family supporting you, then, when the buck stops with you, there is the strength of that community and that family to draw upon.

The keystone to justice is the belief that the legal system treats all fairly.

The good lawyer is the great salesman.

Being a lawyer is not merely a vocation. It is a public trust, and each of us has an obligation to give back to our communities.

I have been surrounded by some of the smartest, brightest, most caring lawyers, by agents who are willing to risk their lives for others, by support staff that are willing to work as hard as they can.

I think lawyers who engage in pro bono service to protect those who cannot help themselves are truly the heroes and the heroines of the legal profession.

I think, clearly, where you have a situation in which the Solicitor General tells me, 'I cannot in good faith argue a certainly legal position,' and if the president told us to argue that position, we would have to tell him, 'No, we can't do that, Mr. President.'

Peer mediation is a chance for students to work with other students to help them resolve problems, arguments, disagreements without having to get the teacher or the administration involved.

Let us develop an agenda for children that says we can do something about teen pregnancy. Let us make sure that parents are old enough, wise enough, and financially able to take care of their children.

What has too often happened in the past is that people have threatened punishment but have failed to carry it out. It's imperative in any initiative that is undertaken that punishment be real and that there be truth in sentencing, and that the truly dangerous offenders - the recidivists and the career criminals - be put away and kept away.

Schools can do extraordinary things given the chance; teachers can do remarkable things if we eliminate the paperwork that sometimes binds them and give them a chance to really teach in our schools.