“We cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself...”
―
Barack Obama
“I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds, understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere.”
―
Barack Obama
“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”
―
Barack Obama
“In the face of our common dangers, in this wintr of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.”
―
Barack Obama
“And then, on September 11, the world fractured.
It's beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day and the days that would follow--the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.”
―
Barack Obama
“As she spoke, her voice never wavered; it was the voice of someone who has forced a larger meaning out of tragedy.
―
Barack Obama
“This pleased Onyango, for to him knowledge was the source of all the white man's power, and he wanted to make sure that his son was as educated as any white man.”
―
Barack Obama
“We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.”
―
Barack Obama
“America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do.”
―
Barack Obama
“People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves.”
―
Barack Obama
“Although the principle of equality has always been self-evident, it has never been self-executing.”
―
Barack Obama
“They spend half they lives worrying about what white folks think.”
―
Barack Obama
“Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma. They end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs when, if you, they just gave, you gave, treatment early, and they got some treatment, and uhhh a breathalyzer, or uhh, an inhalator, not a breathalyzer...”
―
Barack Obama
“We are made for this moment, and we will seize it-so long as we seize it together.”
―
Barack Obama
“Still, I strongly resisted the idea of offering up my past in a book, a past that left me feeling exposed, even slightly ashamed.”
―
Barack Obama
