One of the things that you come pretty early on to understand in this job, and you start figuring out even during the course of the campaign, is that there's Barack Obama the person and there's Barack Obama the symbol, or the office holder, or what people are seeing on television, or just a representative of power. And so when people criticize or respond negatively to me, usually they're responding to this character that they're seeing on TV called Barack Obama, or to the office of the presidency and the White House and what that represents.

American leadership is not simply a matter of going it alone and bearing all of the burden ourselves.

I do think that you're starting to see young people pay attention to some longterm issues that they feel Washington has neglected.

The capacity of Iraq's security forces has improved, and Iraq's leaders have made strides toward political accommodation

If you're a strong man, you should not feel threatened by strong women.

You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig.

You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.