“People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves.”

“Cynicism is a choice, and hope is a better choice.”

“We have our own ways, our own memories, and what has happened between all of us is hard to undo.”

“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.”

“White folks. The term itself was uncomfortable in my mouth at first; I felt like a non-native speaker tripping over a difficult phrase.”

“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.”

“Issues, action, power, self-interest. I liked these concepts. They bespoke a certain hardheadedness, a worldly lack of sentiment; politics, not religion.”

“This victory alone is not the change we seek; it is only the chance for us to make that change.”

“At the end of the day, the circumstances of your life-- what you look like,where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home--none of that is an excuse... where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No ones written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write you own destiny.You make your own future.”

“Where once I’d felt the need to live up to his expectations, I now felt as if I had to make up for all his mistakes.”

“The trick is not caring that it hurts.”

“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.”

“inexhaustible...our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God.”

“If you’re going to do this work, Barack, you’ve got to stop worrying about whether people like you. They won’t.” Patronage,”