I decided to become a community organizer ... Change won't come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots.

The interesting thing about the African-American experience in this country is that we are sort of a mongrel of people. I mean we're all kind of mixed up.

[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.

We’re making new investments in the development of gasoline and diesel and jet fuel that’s actually made from a plant-like substance-algae... We could replace up to 17 percent of the oil we import for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in the United States.

That may prevent us from getting a deal done, It is there to be had. Whether ultimately Iran can seize that opportunity - we will have to wait and see, but it is not for lack of trying on our part.

The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

We ask for nothing more than the chance to blaze our own trail, and yet each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, helped us find our path. That`s part of what makes America exceptional. We are family and we`ll do anything to help each other along the way.