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There can be no greater privilege in life than to be chosen to lead your country.

Countries only have certain opportunities in history, and if you do not take advantage of them, those opportunities don't ever come back to you again.

We must never forget that many around the globe are denied the basic rights we enjoy as Americans. If we are to continue enjoying these privileges and freedoms we must accept our mission of expanding democracy around the globe.

In a world of inhumanity, war and terrorism, American citizenship is a very precious possession.

Millions of us, myself included, go back generations in this country, with ancestors who put in the painstaking work to become citizens. So we don't like the notion that anyone might get a free pass to American citizenship.

And everything stopped quite rapidly because I knew that nobody in Europe was able to go to space. It was the privilege of being either American or Russian.

No group of our citizens can be denied the right to participate in the opportunities of first-class citizenship.

The United States gave me opportunities that my country of origin could not: freedom of the press and complete freedom of expression.

Even if there's no way to stop U.S. corporations from shedding their U.S. identities and becoming foreign corporations, there's no reason they should retain the privileges of U.S. citizenship.

It is impossible to think of a world in which America was not there in the honorable service of humanity.