Physically, I feel probably as good as I've ever felt. And I've got as much energy as I ever did. But what you feel after eight years - and I think you'd feel this no matter what, but anytime you have a big transition, it gets magnified - is time passes.
It's also wonderful to be back with my great friend and ally, Chancellor [Angela] Merkel. As I reflect back over the last eight years, I could not ask for a steadier or more reliable partner on the world stage, often through some very challenging times.
If a big wave came at the wrong moment, it would sweep me off into forty-eight-degree water, where I might last twenty minutes. Drowning quickly might be better.
As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No ... eight days a week.
Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.