Later, I would realize that the position of most black students in predominantly white colleges was already too tenuous, our identities too scrambled, to admit to ourselves that our black pride remained incomplete. And to admit our doubt and confusion to whites, to open up our psyches to general examination by those who had caused so much of the damage in the first place, seemed ludicrous, itself an expression of self-hatred - for there seemed no reason to expect that whites would look at our private struggles as a mirror into their own souls, rather than yet more evidence of black pathology.

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.

Here at home, we will strengthen our defenses but not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans, because great and proud nations don't hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.

Become a teacher. Your country needs you.

I've got a pen, and I've got a phone, and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive action. I've got a pen to talk executive actions where congress won't. Where congress isn't acting, I'll act on my own. I have got a pen and I got a phone. And that is all I need.

[Michelle Obama] used to say to our friends, "Barack's exactly the kind of guy I want to be president. I just wish he didn't want to do it when I was married to him."

Our politics at its best involves us recognizing ourselves in each other. And our politics at its worst are when we see immigrants or women or blacks or gays or Mexicans as somehow separate, apart from us.