Quotes from Barack Obama

I realized that for all the power inherent in the seat I now occupied, there would always be a chasm between what I knew should be done to achieve a better world and what in a day, week, or year I found myself actually able to accomplish.

For in the end laws are just words on a page - words that are sometimes malleable, opaque, as dependent on context and trust as they are in a story or poem or promise to someone, words whose meanings are subject to erosion, sometimes collapsing in the blink of an eye.

It felt sometimes as if I'd been caught in a tide, carried along by the current of other people's expectations before I'd clearly defined my own.

Before hanging up, Claire and I made a deal to help square the circle. "If your vote's the one that gets us to sixty," I said, "then those kids are going to need you, Claire. But if we're way short, there's no point in you falling on your sword.

I recognize that there are those who believe that it's time to discard the myth—that an examination of America's past and an even cursory glance at today's headlines show that this nation's ideals have always been secondary to conquest and subjugation, a racial caste system and rapacious capitalism, and that to pretend otherwise is to be complicit in a game that was rigged from the start.

But I missed my wife. I missed my kids. I missed my bed, a consistent shower, sitting at a proper table for a proper meal. I missed not having to say the exact same thing the exact same way five or six or seven times a day.

THE QUEST FOR some form of universal healthcare in the United States dates back to 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt, who had previously served nearly eight years as a Republican president, decided to run again—this time on a progressive ticket and with a platform that called for the establishment of a centralized national health service. At

governance couldn't be so antiseptic that it set aside the basic stuff of politics: You had to sell your program, reward supporters, punch back against opponents, and amplify the facts that helped your cause while fudging the details that didn't.

funding to safeguard against a pandemic outbreak

although Michelle's tastes and mine often diverged: She preferred rom-coms, while according to her, my favorite movies usually involved "terrible things happening to people, and then they die.

Aside from having to drag progressives kicking and screaming to support a bill tailored to the sensibilities of Max Baucus and Joe Lieberman, the election of Scott Brown less than a year before the midterms had spooked every moderate Democrat who would be in a competitive race.

There was a reason, I told Valerie, why Republicans tended to do the opposite—why Ronald Reagan could preside over huge increases in the federal budget, federal deficit, and federal workforce and still be lionized by the GOP faithful as the guy who successfully shrank the federal government. They understood that in politics, the stories told were often as important as the substance achieved.

Sometimes it didn't matter how good your process was. Sometimes you were just screwed, and the best you could do was have a stiff drink—and light up a cigarette.

who do we consider a true member of the American family, deserving of the same rights, respect, and concern that we expect for ourselves?

And above all, children need our unconditional love - whether they succeed or make mistakes; when life is easy and when life is tough.

If we are truly created equal then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well

How do we transform mere power into justice, mere sentiment into love?

No one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding the hand of the person they love.

But if you - if what - the reports are true, what they're saying is, is that as a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that's going to increase our costs, we knew that.

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

The last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of the recession because that would just suck up and take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

Unlike my opponent, I will not let oil companies write this country's energy plan, or endanger our coastlines, or collect another $4 billion in corporate welfare from our taxpayers.

In fact, the best thing we could do on taxes for all Americans is to simplify the individual tax code. This will be a tough job, but members of both parties have expressed an interest in doing this, and I am prepared to join them.