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You know, I started my career in politics in 1967. I'm not new to this. I did not just fall off the Christmas tree. I understand the world is complex. I know that there are people out there who want to hurt other people.

I'm not a career politician. I spent 30 years in business. I can tell you that people in California have had it with career politicians: they are done.

I just feel like I'm a very lucky person to have a new life outside of politics.

Some people get in the way of change happening. Some people spend their whole careers thinking they can make a difference. Other people want to do as little as possible to get the day done.

I never got into politics for it to be a career. It doesn't take a lot of strength to hang on. It takes a lot of strength to let go.

I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class.

When I was growing up in the United States and Sweden, I never thought about becoming a politician.

There's nothing in my background that would have said I was destined to be a senior politician.

I've been a politician long enough to know that every year will find us living in a situation that one couldn't have imagined a year previously. Sometimes it's better than we imagined, sometimes it's not as good.

I have got instincts that, I think, are very much in tune with people's very keen sense to see something different. I did not dream of being in politics since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I was not involved in student politics, or not in that partisan way.