“But you see, a rich country like America can perhaps afford to be stupid.”

“You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.”

“Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up”

“it’s important to make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.”

“And you won’t have to wake up at four in the morning,” she said, a point that I found most compelling.”

“Although the principle of equality has always been self-evident, it has never been self-executing.”

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

“For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.”

“Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport, with politicians our paunch-bellied gladiators and those who bother to pay attention just fans on the sidelines: We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters. But I don't think so. They are out there, I think to myself, those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way-in their own lives, at least- to make peace with their neighbors, and themselves. ...I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting. They are out there, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”

“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.”

“Aku tersandung pada salah satu rahasia yang tersimpan dengan baik tentang orang-orang kulit hitam: kebanyakan orang kulit hitam tidak tertarik dengan revolusi; kebanyakan kami merasa lelah dengan masalah ras.”

“Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-old debates about the role of government for all time — but it does require us to act in our time,”

“Yes We Can!”

“Well, amigo … you can talk all you want about saving the world, but this city tends to eat away at such noble sentiments.”

“If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.”