“Bob Rubin was opposed to signing the welfare bill. He’s not exactly what I call a flaming liberal.”

Israel has a security concern involving geography. But geography does not have the same value it did in 1967.

A strong economy depends on a strong middle class, but George Bush has put the middle class in a hole, and John McCain has a plan to keep digging that hole with George Bush’s shovel.

As individuals, we will be judged in our lives by the totality of our actions. Not one thing will stand out. And I think that’s how we get judged by our colleagues and that’s how we get judged by the good lord.

It is one thing to train officers on fighting crime. It is a whole other thing to train them to build friendships and relationships, which are integral to fighting crime. This takes time, effort, and patience on the part of police officers.

We can define the rules of police-citizen engagement, but everyday decisions will always be made by men and women in uniform, on the street, in the community, under extreme pressure, in a dangerous world where guns easily fall into the wrong hands.

I believe the record I was allowed to help establish by the side of the president was important.

Because of the president’s leadership, every American will have access to affordable, quality health care.

I sometimes joke, Paula, even paranoid people have enemies.

For all the things that make Chicago great, for all the things that make us proud to call ourselves Chicagoans, the violence that is happening corrodes our core. It is not the Chicago we know and love.

In the White House, you can be on the pitcher’s mound or you can be in the catcher’s position. Put points on the board. Show people you can govern. Deliver on what you said you were going to deliver on.

When it comes to federal elections law, Tom DeLay and his special-interest friends live by one set of rules, and everyone else lives by a very different set.

The American people want change. They want big ideas, big reform.

I do not believe the government has the right to investigate somebody’s private life.

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

We invoke the sacrifices of our fallen heroes in the abstract, but we seldom take time to thank them individually.

Rather than doing the kind of fact-checking that normally goes with a story, you ran with certain stories for not wanting to get beat. There’s a pressure that exists in your profession. I would be surprised in any honest exchange that you say that doesn’t exist.

A rose looks grey at midnight, but the flame is just asleep. And steel is strong because it knows the hammer and white heat.

At forty-five degrees, the sky will burn. Fire to approach the great new city; in an instant, a great scattered flame will leap up, when one will want to get evidence from the Normans.

That which neither weapon nor flame could accomplish will be achieved by a sweet speaking tongue in council.

Five and forty steps the sky will burn. Fire approaching the large new city. Instantly a great thin flame will leap, when someone will want to test the Normans.

Once our souls collided and caught fire, there was no turning back.

The age of hairsplitting Jewish intellectualism is dead. The past lies in flames.

He wasn’t like a moth attracted to her flame. He was like a vampire in love with her eternal darkness.

You can fan the flames with hate or stroke the fire with love, either way, it’s going to burn.