I knew Barack Obama, absolutely. And I knew him probably as well as thousands of other Chicagoans.

My dad was a [Theodor] Roosevelt Democrat.

If the logic of capitalism is "expand or die," then either it has to die or the world has to die.

That's what [Abraham] Lincoln said. "The white man will always be above the black man. I don't want them to run for office, or have political rights, or vote. I want them to go back to Africa."

The world spends two trillion dollars a year on military, and of that two trillion the United States spends one trillion. We have a bigger military than the rest of the world put together. We have 150 foreign military bases.

We should open our eyes, see what's in front of us, and act.

After I had known [Barack Obama] for a while, I remember saying to my partner, "You know, this guy is really ambitious, I think he wants to be Mayor of Chicago." That was the limit of my imagination.