Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that's the story that we're not seeing, and it's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock.

I support workplace clean air. But a federal ban on smoking would mean that you couldn't smoke in your own home. I don't care what people do in their home.

Divorce is one of the key predictors of poverty for a child growing up in a home that's broken.

I'm still one who says that we can get rid of the Internal Revenue Service if we would pass the fair tax, which is a tax on consumption rather than a tax on people's income, and move power back where the founders believed it should have been all along.

One of the things about politics, when you're actually there, you realize, you're on a high wire and there is no net under you. On any given day, your campaign can implode for something that happens inadvertently or even intentionally.

I'm not a reckless person, in the sense that I wouldn't do something that's reckless or dangerous, because I'm a pretty careful person. For example, I don't snow ski. I did it once, and I promised God I'd never do it again if I lived through it.

I grew up in a family in which no male upstream from me had ever finished high school, much less gone to college. But I was taught that even though there was nothing I could do about what was behind me, I could change everything about what was in front of me. My working poor parents told me that I could do better.

So when we're really addressing issues like poverty, you can't do that without addressing the real driver of some of those, which is stable homes, families. So that's why to me those issues are important. They're not frivolous. They're critical economic issues.

Marriage should be reinforced, not redefined.

I think America is in trouble, but it's not beyond repair. But it's going to take leadership who sees the greatness of this country and who believes that, once again, we can be one nation under God.

One of the reasons that Social Security is in so much trouble is that the only funding stream comes from people who get a wage. The people who get wages is declining dramatically. Most of the income in this country is made by people at the top who get dividends and - and capital gains.

The fact is there are a lot of things happening at the federal level that are absolutely beyond the jurisdiction of the Constitution. This is power that should be shifted back to the states, whether it's the EPA - there is no role at the federal level for the Department of Education.

To me, there are four F's in a good tax system: it ought to be flatter, fairer, finite and family-friendly.

The health care system is really designed to reward you for being unhealthy. If you are a healthy person and work hard to be healthy, there are no benefits.

I wish we would all remember that being American is not just about the freedom we have; it is about those who gave it to us.

The fact is, my friends, most Americans don't want more government. They want less government.

My kids have moved more in their twenties, you know, than my parents have moved in nearly 40-something years of marriage before they died. So there's a part of me that laments what we have lost, and that is a sense of community.

Nobody in this country is on Social Security because they made the decision when they were starting work at 14 that they wanted to trust some of their money with the government. The government took it out of their check whether they wanted them to or not.

I've never, ever tasted beer.

I'm an independent conservative. And what I mean by that - when I think we're right, I'm with us all the way, and I am a conservative. And I think my record reflects that.

I continue to do something I've done since I was 18, and that is read a chapter of Proverbs every day as part of my daily devotion. I still maintain that.

As a governor, I've signed virtually every kind of pro-life legislation that we can sign under existing federal law, none of which have been harsh or punitive, but I think they've been important to really point out a pro-life culture in Arkansas. That's, for me, a good thing.

You know, in my hometown of Hope, Arkansas, the three sacred heroes were Jesus, Elvis, and FDR, not necessarily in that order.

I think at the heart of the pro-life movement is the idea that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights starting with life.