Let us learn together and laugh together and work together and pray together, confident that in the end we will triumph together in the right.

Early on, when Rosalynn was visiting the White House, some of our staff asked the chef and cooks if they thought they could prepare the kind of meals which we had enjoyed in the South, and the cook said, "Yes, ma'am, we've been fixing that kind of food for the servants for a long time."

Any system of economics is bankrupt if it sees either value or virtue in unemployment.

In every instance that I have known of with confrontation with the government and the press, the press was always right. So keep it up.

Because of the heavy emphasis that was placed on Soviet-American competition, a dominant factor in our dealings with foreign countries became whether they espoused an anti-communist line. There were times when right-wing monarchs and military dictators were automatically immune from any criticism of their oppressive actions. Our apparent commitment was to protect them from any internal political movement that might result in the establishment of a more liberal ruling group. Instead of promoting freedom and democratic principles, our government seemed to believe that in any struggle with evil, we could not compete effectively unless we played by the same rules or lack of rules as the evildoers.

I would say that the quarters at the White House are quite similar to those we enjoyed as the governor's family in Georgia, but I have been constantly impressed--I almost said overwhelmed--at the historical nature of the White House, occupied for the first time by our second president, John Adams. When I see a desk or a writing cabinet or a book or a sideboard or a bed that was used by Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt or Truman or Kennedy, I have a feeling of almost unreality about my being president, but also a feeling of both adequacy and determination that I might live up to the historical precedents established by my predecessors.

Some devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and justifying their belief on an erroneous interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures. "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," their most likely response, overlooks the fact that this was promulgated by Moses as a limitation- a prohibition against taking both eyes or all of an offender's teeth in retribution.

I can't deny I'm a better ex-president than I was a president.

The most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now seventy-five times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also within them.

The most attractive political promise made by successful new candidates is that they will bring about "change," and even longtime veterans spend much of their energy condemning the very government within which they serve. Incumbency would be a great handicap were it not for the campaign coffers filled by rich and powerful interest groups eager to reward compliant voting records.

As the President for four years, I was commander in chief of a massive military. I had three million people working under me in different ways in the U.S. government structure. I had authority to help pass laws and to negotiate treaties. I don’t have any of these authorities now, and I don’t need them. My life since the White House has been much more all-encompassing, much more enjoyable. The main thing that I’ve acquired in the last twenty-seven years has been access to the poorest and most destitute, forgotten, and suffering people on Earth. It’s not possible for a President to actually know them. But we go into the remote areas of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and actually meet with people who are suffering and find out why. Then we try to work with them, giving them maximum responsibility for correcting their own problems. So that’s the element that’s been most beneficial to me.

Although American medical skill is among the best in the world, we have an abominable system in this country for the delivery of health care, with gross inequities toward the poor--particularly the working poor--and profiteering by many hospitals and some medical doctors, who prey on the vulnerability of the ill. The buffer between expensive medical care and patients' ability to pay at the time of illness is provided by insurers, who collect premiums large enough to finance such a system and still retain an adequate profit for themselves. After paying insurance premiums for a time, many people have no hesitation about unnecessarily entering a hospital, receiving expensive diagnoses while they are there, staying an extra day or two, and accepting the most elaborate service and treatment. Some even see it as a way to get back their investment in the insurance premiums. At that point, both doctors and hospital owners benefit, while the patient is an unwitting contributor to higher medical costs and inequitable distribution of medical care.

There is a strong religious commitment to the sanctity of human life, but, paradoxically, some of the most fervent protectors of microscopic stem cells are the most ardent proponents of the death penalty.

I was familiar with the widely accepted arguments that we had to choose between idealism and realism, or between morality and the exertion of power; but I rejected those claims. To me, the demonstration of American idealism was a practical and realistic approach to foreign affairs, and moral principles were the best foundation for the exertion of American power and influence.

Seminal changes in the news media over the past three decades have also helped create a more volatile political arena. During my last year in office, I joined with Ted Turner to celebrate the birth of CNN, and this new network provided global news coverage that was accurate, comprehensive, and objective--standards that were later partially sacrificed to meet intense competition from other channels. To gain viewers, the twenty-four-hour news channels have now come to rely on reporting that often dramatizes or exaggerates each reported rumor or fact. In addition, the more radical presentations of information or commentary have proven to be most popular, so radio and television programs, like political alignments, have tended toward extremes. An unfortunate result of the need for constant reporting--especially on Internet news outlets--has been the demise of hundreds of newspapers that have proved unable to compete, leaving major cities and towns with one merged journal, or, in some cases, none at all. The free and vigorous presentation of different opinion has been sacrificed to polarized uniformity.

We have the heaviest concentration of lawyers on Earth—one for every five-hundred Americans; three times as many as are in England, four times as many as are in West Germany, twenty-one times as many as there are in Japan. We have more litigation, but I am not sure that we have more justice. No resources of talent and training in our own society, even including the medical care, is more wastefully or unfairly distributed than legal skills. Ninety percent of our lawyers serve 10 percent of our people. We are over-lawyered and under-represented.

I believe that anyone can be successful in life, regardless of natural talent or the environment within which we live. This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame, but adhering to God's standards of truth, justice, humility, service, compassion, forgiveness, and love.

Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.

Except during my childhood, when I was probably influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel depiction of God with a flowing white beard, I have never tried to project the Creator in any kind of human likeness. The vociferous debates about whether God is male or female seem ridiculous to me. I think of God as an omnipotent and omniscient presence, a spirit that permeates the universe, the essence of truth, nature, being, and life. To me, these are profound and indescribable concepts that seem to be trivialized when expressed in words.

The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes -- and we must.