For me, Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.

No one wants to see self-destructive riots because there's no future in riots.

If a black doctor discovers a cure for cancer, ain't no hospital going to lock him out.

It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other.

Our flag is read, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbown-red, yellow, brown, black and white - and we're all precious in God's sight.

The US must be the honest broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians. America needs to be to both of them what neither could be to the other: a trusted brokering partner. It is in their interest and our interest for America to play that role.

When we were hit on 9/11 it took us a few weeks to get the coalition together because [George] Bush had come in with a kind of narrow ideology, looking at the world, I'd say, through a keyhole and not through a door.