The world only makes sense to me given my life and my background if, in fact, we're not just an assortment of tribes that can never understand each other, but that we're, rather, one common humanity that can meet and learn and love each other.

We do not benefit from a relationship with China or any other country in which we put our values and our ideals aside.

Reversing structural problems in our economy that have been building up for two decades, that was gonna take time. It was gonna take more than a year. It was gonna take more than two years. It was gonna take more than one term. Probably takes more than one president.

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost.

Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them... Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen it.

I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay.

I don't think there's anybody who's run a campaign like [Donald Trump] successfully in modern history, not that I can think of. And, as a consequence because he didn't have the supports of many of the establishment in his own party, because he ran sort of an improvisational campaign.