“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.”
―
Barack Obama
“Each path to knowledge involves different rules and these rules are not interchangeable.”
―
Barack Obama
“Over the last fifteen months we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been to fifty-seven states. I think, one left to go.”
―
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
“For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.”
―
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
“That’s where it all starts,” she said. “The Big Man. Then his assistant, or his family, or his friend, or his tribe. It’s the same whether you want a phone, or a visa, or a job. Who are your relatives? Who do you know? If you don’t know somebody, you can forget it. That’s what the Old Man never understood, you see. He came back here thinking that because he was so educated and spoke his proper English and understood his charts and graphs everyone would somehow put him in charge. He forgot what holds everything together here.”
―
Barack Obama
“There's nobody to guide through the process of becoming a man... to explain to them the meaning of manhood. And that's a recipe for disaster.”
―
Barack Obama
“I was impatient in those days, busy with work and unrealized plans, and prone to see other people as unnecessary distractions.”
―
Barack Obama
“We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect.”
―
Barack Obama
“For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. So let us mark this day with remebrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled.”
―
Barack Obama
“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated. But”
―
Barack Obama
“The absence of even rough agreement on the facts puts every opinion on equal footing and therefore eliminates the basis for thoughtful compromise. It rewards not those who are right, but those - like the White House press office - who can make their arguments most loudly, most frequently, most obstinately, and with the best backdrop.”
―
Barack Obama
