Ronald Reagan was a dim hack who did horrible damage to almost everything he touched.

There is a lot in American politics (and in American life) that is angry, greedy, reckless and violent.

It's better to be black than gay because when you're black you don't have to tell your mother.

Optimism....is neither weak nor naive. It can be tough and pure and earned just as clearly as any brooding existential despair.

One of the great changes wrought by the increased public awareness of Alzheimers - and thank you, Nancy Reagan, you wonderful tough old dame, you - is that people in the early stages of the disease are now speaking out while they still have the capacity to do so.

We, The People is more than a statement of purpose. It is an acknowledgement of an obligation to each other.

The idea that America elected a black man to be its president forty years after it declined to allow Martin Luther King Jr. to stand on a balcony without getting shot still maintains its power to awe and inspire.