O, fly and never tire, Fly and never tire, Fly and never tire, There's a great camp-meeting in the Promised Land. —FROM AN AFRICAN AMERICAN SPIRITUAL

A change happens because ordinary people do extraordinary things.

We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.

The cynics may be the loudest voices, but I promise you, they will accomplish the least.

Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?

Michelle shook her head and looked out the window. We both knew what I was asking for. Another disruption. Another gamble. Another step in the direction of something I wanted and she truly didn't. "This is it, Barack," Michelle said. "One last time. But don't expect me to do any campaigning. In fact, you shouldn't even count on my vote.

The fuss of being president, the pomp, the press, the physical constraints - all that I could have done without. The actual work, though? The work, I loved. Even when it didn't love me back.

Time cures you first, and then it kills you.

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. What I want is almost so simple I can't say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed.

The daily work—that goes on, it adds up. It goes into the ground, into crops, into children's bellies and their bright eyes. Good things don't get lost.

For some, a lousy day's work will get you yelled at. For farmers, it's live or die.

We'd worked so hard for God's favor, yet it seemed God was still waiting for some extra labor on our part, and it was up to my father to figure out what.