I have hair that I audition with my sitcom hair which is a curly wig. I have my long chic hair that I wear to my son's school so they know I'm not playing around. I always tell people that my husband gets a different woman every night when I come home from 'The View.' Hair makes you feel a certain way like putting a power suit on.

Tonight we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation - not because of the height of our skyscrapers or the power of our military or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.

It will be about which candidate which of the two candidates remaining is best suited to make a positive difference in the lives of North Carolina families and I submit to each of you tonight that I am that candidate and Elizabeth Dole is not.

We found out tonight how important and how crucial momentum swings can be. I thought we were playing very well. We were doing a lot of positive things but then we lost the puck two times in our zone and things swung their way. You can't afford to give teams momentum.

Inauthenticity is endemic in American politics today. The political backrooms where I spent much of my career were just as benighted as my personal life equally crowded with shadowy strangers and compromises truths I hoped to deny. I lived not in one closet but in many.

Politics is pop. Our job as comedians - especially me as a late-night talk show which is a broader audience - is to amplify what we think America is thinking.

Before I went to jail I was active in politics as a member of South Africa's leading organization - and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think.

I read as much poetry as time allows and circumstance dictates: No heartache can pass without a little Dorothy Parker no thunderstorm without W. H. Auden no sleepless night without W. B. Yeats.

On a summer night it can be lovely to sit around outside with friends after dinner and yes read poetry to each other. Keats and Yeats will never let you down but it's differently exciting to read the work of poets who are still walking around out there.

In the language of poetry where every word is weighed nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all not a single existence not anyone's existence in this world.

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night lying in bed thinking what you really think making the private world public that's what the poet does.

And New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it. No urban night is like the night there... Squares after squares of flame set up and cut into the aether. Here is our poetry for we have pulled down the stars to our will.

When I was writing pretty poor poetry this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on.

My biggest pet peeve are just girls who go to sports bars who have no intention on caring what teams are playing like they're looking for just a night out. That drives me more crazy than anything else. Like don't pretend to be a sports fan.

I try not to wear anything I have to fidget with - there's nothing worse than wearing something and pulling down the hem and re-adjusting the top. My pet hate is when girls wear those strapless dresses and spend the whole night yanking them up.

Any idealist who tries to join the Peace Corps must realize he is not going to change the world overnight.

God is day and night winter and summer war and peace surfeit and hunger.

Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.

Kids are a great analogy. You want your kids to grow up and you don't want your kids to grow up. You want your kids to become independent of you but it's also a parent's worst nightmare: That they won't need you. It's like the real tragedy of parenting.

Love is staying up all night with a sick child - or a healthy adult.

Always kiss your children goodnight even if they're already asleep.

Everything is blooming most recklessly if it were voices instead of colors there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.

There was this mountain village in Russia where my music was getting in on some German radio station. I remember this because music used to get up to Saskatchewan from Texas. Late at night after the local station closed down.

I've never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller and it just didn't work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight and they all had big voices too just different than mine.