“Where once I’d felt the need to live up to his expectations, I now felt as if I had to make up for all his mistakes.”
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Barack Obama
“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”
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Barack Obama
“And where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words -yes, we can.”
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Barack Obama
“The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln.”
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Barack Obama
“At the end of the day, the circumstances of your life-- what you look like,where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home--none of that is an excuse... where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No ones written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write you own destiny.You make your own future.”
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Barack Obama
“The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t. But she is a typical white person…”
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Barack Obama
“Change will not happen if we wait for another person or another time. We are the person that we are waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
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Barack Obama
“This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it.”
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Barack Obama
“I don't worry about the survival of the novel. We're a storytelling species.”
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Barack Obama
“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.”
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Barack Obama
“Just a negative attitude, you understand. growing up in alt geld, i'd soaked up all the poison the white man feeds us. see, the folks you're working with got the same problem, even though they dont realize it yet. they spend half they lives worrying about what the white folks think. start blaming themselves for the shit they see every day, thinking they cant do no better till the white man decides they all right. but deep down they know that ain't right. they know what this country has dont to their momma, their daddy, their sister. so the truth is they hate their folks, but they cant admit it to themselves, keep it all bottled up, fighting themselves. waste a lot of energy that way. i tell you one thing i admire about the white folks, they know who they are. look at the italians. they didn't care about the American flag and all that when they got here. first thing they did is to put together the mafia to make sure their intrests were met. the irish they took the city hall and found their boys jobs. the Jews the same thing.. you telling me they care more about some black kid in the south side than they do about they relatives in isarel? shit!> its about blood, Barack, looking after your own. period. black people the only ones stupid enough to worry about their enemies.”
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Barack Obama
“That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn.”
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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
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Barack Obama
“That’s probably what had drawn me to Regina, the way she made me feel like I didn’t have to lie.”
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Barack Obama
“In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.”
―
Barack Obama
