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

“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.”

“The best anti-poverty program is a world-class education.”

“A woman named Helen Keller fought her way through long, silent darkness. Though she could not see or hear, she taught us to look at and listen to each other. Never waiting for life to get easier, she gave others courage to face their challenges.”

“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.”

“This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it.”

“My heart is filled with love for this country.”

“The road we have taken to this point has not been easy. But then again the road to change never is.”

“There's no such thing as a vote that doesn't matter.”

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

“It was like - It was like Special Olympics or something.”

“Don’t you know who I am? I’m an individual!

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

“A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.”

“Let me tell your something. I'm from Chicago. I don't break.”