The theater is necessary. Dance is necessary. Song is necessary. The arts are necessary- they are a necessary part of our lives

We right now give $15 billion every year as subsidies to private insurers under the Medicare system. Doesn't work any better through the private insurers. They just skim off $15 billion.

We are still the America that does the hard things, that does the great things. We're the nation that always dared to dream. We're the nation that dared to take risks.

Arne Duncan is done more to bring our educational system, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the 21st century than anyone else.

If you don't have a record to run on, you paint your opponent as someone to run from.

When it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table. ... That includes all elements of American power: a political effort aimed at isolating Iran, a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored, an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.

I would say of all the things that have happened during the course of my presidency the knowledge that you have hundreds of thousands of people who have been killed, millions who have been displaced, [makes me] ask myself what might I have done differently along the course of the last five, six years.