“I wish [my mother] could have seen the America we’re going to build together. An America, where if you do your part, you reap the rewards. Where we don’t leave anyone out, or anyone behind. An America where a father can tell his daughter: yes, you can be anything you want to be. Even President of the United States.”

“In America, anyone can become president. That's the problem.”

“To all the people out there, you know just live out your dreams, if you dream something, just pursue it and do it because if you can put your mind to it you can do basically anything and everything you want to. I mean look at me, I came from a country that was falling apart because of communism and escaping to America, not knowing the language and then not learning it from beginning, and overcoming that and where I am now, you know it just shows you that if you put your mind to it you can do anything you want to.”

“America is the place where you can not kill your Government by killing the men who conduct it. The only way you can kill government in America is by making the men and women of America forget how to govern, and nobody can do that. They sometimes find the team a little difficult to drive, but they sooner or later whip it into harness.”

“But I also see a problem where a lot of people don't believe in the American idea anymore. The condition of your birth doesn't determine the outcome of your life. This is America, you can make it. You work hard, play by the rules, you can rise, you can do well. That's what we're taught, that's what we believe, that's what we think of as America. Problem is, there are just generations of people in this country who do not think that.”

“America, I believe we can build on the progress we've made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn't matter whether you're black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you're willing to try. I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We're not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America. And together with your help and God's grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.”

“Nobody had forgotten anything here. In Berlin, you had to wrestle with the past, you had to build on the ruins, inside them. It wasn't like America where we scraped the earth clean, thinking we could start again every time.”

“In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. This is what makes America what it is.”

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

“You have to carry the fire."
I don't know how to."
Yes, you do."
Is the fire real? The fire?"
Yes it is."
Where is it? I don't know where it is."
Yes you do. It's inside you. It always was there. I can see it.”