Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.

I don't want my generals or my defense secretary or my national-security team to ever feel deploying weapons to kill people as routine or abstract, even if the targets are bad people.

Because of the internet and communications, the clash of cultures is much more direct. People feel, I think, less certain about their identity, less certain about economic security.

We rise and fall as one people, one nation.

America is a nation of immigrants. And so the question is, how do we make legal immigration faster, less bureaucratic, cut the red tape?

If you can look back and say, "The economy's better. Our security's better. The environment's better. Our kids' education is better," if you can say that you've made things better, then considering all the challenges out there, you should feel good. But I'm the first to acknowledge that I did not crack the code in terms of reducing this partisan fever.

Sometimes it may seem as if progress is stalled but what history of post-war Germany shows is that strength and determination and focus and adherence to the values that we care about will result in a better future for our children and our grandchildren.