I know how to run a nationally paced campaign.

There have been more people disenfranchised in Washington than there have been in Kuwait.

If the American people in a matter of months can love the people of Kuwait, whom they have not seen, they can love the people of our nation's capital just as well.

I remember being taught my place.

My very first recollection of life on earth was waking up in bed with my mother, and she was showing me a picture of my father, Charles Jackson, with a group of soldiers.

We've been so preoccupied with getting the government to behave in a fair and democratic way, we were not able to focus on the private sector where most of the jobs are, where most of the wealth and opportunities are.

The American people on the ground need a clearer, stronger, Lyndon B. Johnson-type voice from their president. Obama has that voice. It has to be used.

We blacks were the first people embracing Obama, long before the people at expensive fundraisers were supporting him. We gave him his first love, 96 percent of blacks voted for him in 2008. Yet today we are the number one in unemployment, with 16 percent of American blacks out of work.

Watch the walls come down, whether it's in the South or on Wall Street. When the walls come down, what do we find? More markets, more talent, more capital and growth. Which means that the race and sex discrimination stunt economic growth. It's not good for capitalism. It's not good for America's growth. And it's not morally right.

The more you focus on sex without love, and drugs and violence, lifestyle of intimidation and recycling, the less energy you spend on opening up the big tent.

I mean, the fight for a health care bill to cover all Americans and leave none behind is attacked as being a race appeal, which is not true, but then it's put out in the media as true.

I cast my bread on the waters long ago. Now it's time for you to send it back to me - toasted and buttered on both sides.

The law protects you from being abused. It doesn't threaten your lifestyle for someone else to have the right to exhibit their lifestyle.

Statehood for the District of Columbia is the most important civil rights and social justice issue in America today.

A man who cannot be enticed by money or intimidated by the threat of jail or death has two of the strongest weapons that anyone has to offer.

I know they are all environmentalists. I heard a lot of my speeches recycled.

People always grow and mature.

People internalize, from the jail to student loan debt, to credit card debt, to unemployment to the whole collective. It manifests itself in many ways, in people's home lives, domestic stuff.

From seeds of his body blossomed the flower that liberated a people and touched the soul of a nation.

America needs young people to be inspired to choose sacrifice over greed.

The relationship between the prophet and the President, the priest and the President, is a sacred one.

We have to judge politicians by their cumulative score. In one innings they make a great catch, in another they drop the ball. In one they score a home run, in another they strike out. But it is their cumulative batting average that we are interested in.

Many have fought for and even lost their lives to end segregation, to win the right to vote. It disappoints me to now have to cajole people to register and to vote.

Humanitarian appeals always help. They penetrate deeper than political tradeoffs.