Washington is a place where good ideas go to die.

You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Keep exploring. Keep dreaming. Keep asking why. Don’t settle for what you already know. Never stop believing in the power of your ideas, your imagination, your hard work to change the world.

When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk.

Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

Change is never easy, but always possible.

Don’t ever let anybody tell you that your efforts don’t matter or that your voice doesn’t count. Don’t ever believe that you can’t make a difference. You have.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up.

Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.

If somebody is different from you, that's not something you criticize, that's something that you appreciate.

The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s something you’re not to worry about.

Sometimes the grief was nearby, waiting, just barely held back, and I could ignore it for a while. But at other times it was like a cup that was always full and kept spilling over.

You know you’re a good leader when people follow you out of curiosity.

The fact is that we don't want to be free. What is responsible for our problems is the fear of losing what we have and what we know.

Monotony is the awful reward of the careful.

Being successful is about professionalism, and chewing gum is unprofessional. Its also a huge pet peeve of mine.

Even the people who do great jokes, [it's] always coming out of a very real place.

Making choices that improve things for all of us on the planet is an act of compassion, a simple act we can do any time we go shopping.

I'm a perfectionist. I'm not going to cheat the people.

When you believe in something and truly go after it with all you have, amazing things will happen.