When we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

I have got to figure out a system because I have bad filing, sorting, and organizing habits.

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.

At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better

And, as a consequence of the pressure that we've applied over the last couple of weeks, we have Syria -- for the first time -- acknowledging that it has chemical weapons, agreeing to join the convention that prohibits the use of chemical weapons, and the Russians -- their primary sponsors -- saying that they will push Syria to get all of their chemical weapons out. The distance that we've traveled over these couple of weeks is remarkable.

Now, I've lived long enough to know that race relations are better than they were 10 or 20 or 30 years ago no matter what some folks say. You can see it not just in statistics, you see it in the attitudes of young Americans across the political spectrum. But we're not where we need to be. And all of us have more work to do.

Most Americans believe that escalation will not bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end, and that's why I've proposed not just a troop cap, but a phased redeployment that will start bringing our troops home.