“Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.”

“A nation ringed by walls will only imprison itself.”

“A lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.”

“The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t. But she is a typical white person…”

“Change won’t come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots.

“I think perhaps education doesn’t do us much good unless it is mixed with sweat.”

“all the education and good intentions in the world couldn’t help plug up the holes in the universe or give you the power to change its blind, mindless course.”

“They, they, they. That was the problem with people like Joyce. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. It wasn't a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective. Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks. Only white culture had individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don't want to? We become only so grateful to lose ourselves in the crowd, America's happy, faceless marketplace; and we're never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us or the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we're bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every single day of their lives-- although that's what we tell ourselves-- but because we're wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger. Don't know who I am? I'm an individual!”

“Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.” 

“Here's the truth: the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn't have a single one. But when the world was on the brink of nuclear holocaust, Kennedy talked to Khrushchev and he got those missiles out of Cuba. Why shouldn't we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies? That's what strong countries do, that's what strong presidents do, that's what I'll do when I'm president of the United States of America.”

“We are a people of improbable hope.”

“It's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.”

“But know this America: we will meet them”

“To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”

“Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.”