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.

And you won't have to wake up at four in the morning," she said, a point that I found most compelling.

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.

The stubborn embrace of austerity by key European leaders, despite all of the contrary evidence, was more than a little frustrating.

There are moments in an election battle, as in life, when all the possible pathways save one are suddenly closed; when what felt like a wide distribution of probable outcomes narrows to the inevitable.

After we're finished, we should try something simpler," I said to him one day. "We could move our families to Hawaii and open a smoothie stand on the beach." "Smoothies are too complicated," Rahm said. "We'll sell T-shirts. But just white T-shirts. In medium. That's it—no other colors or patterns or sizes. We don't want to have to make any decisions. If customers want something different, they can go someplace else.

Cynicism is fashionable these days. But I got to tell you, cynicism didn't put a man on the moon. Cynicism did not create the opportunity for all of our citizens to vote. Cynicism has never won a war, or cured a disease, or started a business, or fed young minds. I believe in optimism. I believe in hope ... Don't let the cynics get you down. Cynicism is a choice - and hope is a better choice.

Your dreams, what you hope for and all that, it's not separate from your life. It grows right up out of it.

If the Lord hasn't got a boyfriend lined up for me to marry, that's his business.

God is frightful, God is great--you pick. I choose this: God is in the details, the completely unnecessary miracles sometimes tossed up as stars to guide us. They are the promise of good fortune in a cloudless day, and the animals in the clouds; look hard enough, and you'll see them. Don't ask if they're real.

Pay attention to your dreams; when you go on a trip, in your dreams you will still be home. Then after you've come home you'll dream of where you were. It's a kind of jet lag of the consciousness.

I thought everything in the world was already discovered. Already in my books. A lot of dead stuff that put me to sleep. That was the day I understood the world is still living.