"My parents were really political. The news was very important in our home. We basically had dinner every night while watching the news, and then we'd discuss it with our parents."

"The civil rights movement was very important in my house, and then Vietnam was very important 'cause there were two boys, so I came of age during a very heated political climate."

"We need to prepare our kids for a 21st Century economy, and we're not doing it with our schools."

"Minnesota has a proud tradition of having two Senators on the Ag committee - a tradition I'd like very much to continue."

"There is - I mean - I found early in life that righteous indignation is a little off-putting, and so I try to couch it with humor."

"I listen to NPR when I listen to the radio, but I don't listen to the radio that much. You know, I listen to Garrison Keillor, I listen to 'Prairie Home Companion.'"

"I've spent my entire career being a satirist."

"It's hard for a liberal to go on between Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, because it's like doing country music after hip-hop. I mean, just, the audience doesn't go from one to the other."

"I'm a bit of a shill for the Clinton Administration, which has its perks. I'm invited to all the inaugural balls."

"If I put myself on the ballot and even 50 people voted for me, it'd be a travesty."

"There's an appeal to the American sense of exceptionalism, that we're morally superior, as way to not be self-critical. I think that's a bit dangerous."

"For 35 years, I was a writer. I wrote a lot of jokes. Some of them weren't funny. Some of them weren't appropriate. Some of them were downright offensive. I understand that."

"When you win an election, what you really win is a chance to go to work for working families who need a voice in Minnesota."

"There's plenty of room for humor in politics, God knows, but it's a serious business."

"I am a Minnesotan, and not just because I root for the Vikings and the Twins. I like the Minnesota-nice sensibility. I like the liberal tradition; I like the Hubert Humphrey tradition fighting for civil rights."

"If you look at terrorists, they really have no sense of humor."

"My dad loved comedians, especially George Jessel, and he loved Henny Youngman and Buddy Hackett."

"My dad didn't graduate from high school, ended up being a printing salesman, probably never made more than $8,000 a year. My mom sold real estate and did it part time."

"I hope you realize, in a democracy, laughter is assent."

"I want to reclaim 'liberal.' I'm a liberal, and I think most Americans are liberals."

"I'm the New York Jew who actually grew up in Minnesota."

"I know I have an awful lot to learn from the people of Minnesota."

"Minnesotans lost their jobs because the credit rating agencies didn't do the only job they're supposed to have, the only job they had, which is to give accurate, objective ratings to financial products."

"Humor and seriousness are not in opposition to each other."