“We will outstretch the hand if you unclench your fist. ”
―
Barack Obama
“In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?”
―
Barack Obama
“So secure was his power that rumblings of discontent had finally surfaced within his own base, among black nationalists upset with his willingness to cut whites and Hispanics into the action, among activists disappointed with his failure to tackle poverty head-on, and among people who preferred the dream to the reality, impotence to compromise.”
―
Barack Obama
“I thought I could start over, you see. But now I know you can never start over. Not really. You think you have control, but you are like a fly in somebody else’s web. Sometimes I think that’s why I like accounting. All day, you are only dealing with numbers. You add them, multiply them, and if you are careful, you will always have a solution. There’s a sequence there. An order. With numbers, you can have control….”
―
Barack Obama
“We must lift ourselves up, dust ourselfs off and begin the work of remaking America.”
―
Barack Obama
“It was like - It was like Special Olympics or something.”
―
Barack Obama
“Conservative or liberal, we are all constitutionalists.”
―
Barack Obama
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.
Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
―
Barack Obama
“In the Catholic school, when it came time to pray, I would pretend to close my eyes, then peek around the room. Nothing happened. No angels descended.”
―
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
“I confess to wincing every so often at a poorly chosen word, a mangled sentence, an expression of emotion that seems indulgent or overly practiced. I have the urge to cut the book by fifty pages or so, possessed as I am with a keener appreciation for brevity.”
―
Barack Obama
“I'm so overexposed, I'm making Paris Hilton look like a recluse.”
―
Barack Obama
“Let us keep that promise – that American promise – and in the words of Scripture -- hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.”
―
Barack Obama
“We may not be able to stop evil in the world, but how we treat one another is entirely up to us.”
―
Barack Obama
“This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it.”
―
Barack Obama
