“At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better”
―
Barack Obama
“When I see Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity baying across the television screen, I find it hard to take them seriously. I assume that they must be saying what they do primarily to boost book sales or ratings, although I do wonder who would spend their precious evenings with such sourpusses.”
―
Barack Obama
“We will outstretch the hand if you unclench your fist. ”
―
Barack Obama
“My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there.
At least that's what I would choose to believe.”
―
Barack Obama
“But it’s just that he is basically a very honest person. That makes him uncompromising sometimes.”
―
Barack Obama
“Once I found an issue enough people cared about, I could take them into action. With enough actions, I could start to build power
―
Barack Obama
“Strange how a single conversation can change you. Or maybe it only seems that way in retrospect.”
―
Barack Obama
“Our individualism has always been bound by a set of communal values, the glue upon which every healthy society depends.”
―
Barack Obama
“My little girls can break my heart. They can make me cry just looking at them eating their string beans.”
―
Barack Obama
“I'm so overexposed, I'm making Paris Hilton look like a recluse.”
―
Barack Obama
“Moreover, I believe that part of America's genius has always been its ability to absorb newcomers, to forge a national identity out of the disparate lot that arrived on our shores. In this we've been aided by a Constitution that--despite being marred by the original sin of slavery--has at its very core the ideas of equal citizenship under the laws; and an economic system that, more than any other, has offered opportunity to all comers, regardless of status or title or rank.”
―
Barack Obama
“the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us...”
―
Barack Obama
“That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”
―
Barack Obama
“Chicago, a town that’s accustomed to its racial wounds and prides itself on a certain lack of sentiment.”
―
Barack Obama
“Change won’t come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots.
―
Barack Obama
