I think that there's a power in that [information through tweets and sound bites ]. There's also a danger, what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn't the same as the process required to actually solve the problem.

What I'm interested in doing after I get out of the presidency is to make sure that I'm working with that next generation so that they understand you can't just rely on inspiration.

Libraries remind us that truth isn't about who yells the loudest but who has the right information.

[When I ordered 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan] that was the first time in which I looked out at a crowd of West Point graduates and knew that some of those might not come back because of that decision.

If you're a progressive, you've got to be worried about how the federal government is spending its revenue, because we don't have enough money to spend on things like early childhood education that are so important.

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting." (Victory Speech, Nov. 7, 2012)

I try never to get too high when things are going well. I try never to get too low when things are going poorly. I try to keep an even keel.