You [as a president] have to have a strong team around you. You have to have respect for institutions and the process to make good decisions because you are inherently reliant on other folks.

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 only education is enlightenment.

I dont write books so that you can be fascinated with me. I write them so you can be fascinated with YOU!

Ricky was a young boy, he had a heart of stone./Tequila in his heartbeat, his veins burned gasoline./18 and life you got it.

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.

You really can't blame the military for wanting to go to war [in Iraq]. They've got all these new toys and they want to know whether they work or not.

No one will want a piece of us in 2009.

We all trust each other to some extent. We have to rely on experts to some extent, but we should learn to be sceptical.

I drink because she nags, she said I nag because he drinks. But if the truth be known to you, He's a lush and she's a shrew.

The number of great museums and nonprofits versus the number of corporate headquarters is incredibly out of whack.

I love winners when they cry, losers when they try.