President Obama's record on national security is a tribute to his strength and judgment and to his preference for inclusion and partnership over partisanship.

I pick projects according to how fascinating they are to me and it has resulted in a broad reach. My records are actually in five different sports: balloons airplanes airships gliders and sailboats.

The ultimate would be to compete in a couple more Olympics hopefully break some world records and wind up my sports career with a couple of years in the WNBA.

The sports page records people's accomplishments the front page usually records nothing but man's failures.

There's not a long track record of people leaving professional sports to become a software developer.

Breaking records is not something you expect to be doing. That's like a sports thing it's not usually a comedy and writing thing.

There isn't a flaw in his golf or his makeup. He will win more majors than Arnold Palmer and me combined. Somebody is going to dust my records. It might as well be Tiger because he's such a great kid.

I always turn to the sports pages first which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures.

I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available knowable and recorded by everyone all the time.

Most of them are pretty down records pretty unhappy pretty confused. Which only reflects how people in general were feeling I mean really the sense that you get is society running down.

You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.

Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases.

Today's recording techniques would have been regarded as science fiction forty years ago.

I've got a full plate yes I do. That iPod that's nice. A phone recorder? Nicely done. All right I'm a bit of a tech geek. I have a subscription to Popular Science and I keep up on all this stuff.

Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess.

You put a song on the record or on tape and you stop singing it. You just don't sit around and sing it anymore unless you're performing. That's kind of sad.

When I look back at those pictures of my mother performing - and listen to her recordings - it makes me sad to think that all of that joy she found in her work came to an end. I wish she hadn't had to make that sacrifice even if it was for the benefit of my father and siblings and me.

And I remember going to the record studio and there was a park across the street and I'd see all the children playing and I would cry because it would make me sad that I would have to work instead.

I respect the people who buy my records and come to my concerts. It's only fair that I always try to give them the very best that's in me. After all I need them more than they need me.

There are so many things to think about when you make an album. Like who am I trying to impress? Am I going to get respect critical acclaim? Or am I going to sell lots of records?

I have no problem going on record with this and probably have gone on record with this before there aren't that many people who I respect. There just aren't.

What is normally called religion is what I would tend to call music - participating in music listening to music making records and singing.

My relationship with the journalists who covered the campaign was complicated. I often hid from the critical eye of their cameras and their omnipresent digital recorders wary of the critique implicit in every captured moment. But I also grew to respect and understand their passion for their work their love for the journey we were sharing.

The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life my relationship with God and where I'm from. Well I can't write a song on purpose my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.