Any other woman who has to go to work and pick up the kids and make dinner – that’s way harder than what I have to do.

The course of true love never did run smooth.

I went through a lot of battles in high school.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.

A lot has happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war, and it’s been tested by recession and all manner of challenges – I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.

So much of what we do every single day is the result of habits that we have formed over time.

My mom, she was a very, very soft woman. It was hard for her to yell or even curse. But when it came to fighting for her kids, she found a strength she didn’t always know she had.

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.

At the end of the day, I pray for the best.

When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

There’s something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she’s only measured water in it.

For Africa to move forward, you’ve really got to get rid of malaria.

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‚If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?‘ And whenever the answer has been ‚No‘ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.

When I’m on stage, it’s really intense. My mind is going a million miles an hour, trying to remember my act, trying to say it all the right way. It’s funny how different it looks and how it’s happening. There are three Fellini circuses in my head, and outwardly it looks like I’m going to get a bagel.

At Columbia Law School, my professor of constitutional law and federal courts, Gerald Gunther, was determined to place me in a federal court clerkship, despite what was then viewed as a grave impediment: On graduation, I was the mother of a 4-year-old child.

There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.

I was sure I’d set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth – that I hadn’t set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if ‚The Big Trail‘ had been a success and launched me as a star.

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.

Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children.

Anyone that’s involved in development has discovered that all the good work that’s been done in development has been undone by the AIDS emergency.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children.

There are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it’s extremely hard to block anything – extremely hard. You’ll never get perfect blocking.

I make preparations both to live and to die every day, but with the emphasis on not dying, and on acting as if I was going to carry on living.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

Nobody can ever make enough money for as many poor relatives as I’ve got. Somebody’s got a sick kid, or somebody needs an operation, somebody ain’t got this, somebody ain’t got that. Or to give the kids all a car when they graduate.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.

Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

There’s many ups and downs in the fight game.

We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.

Every day I go to my study and sit at my desk and put the computer on. At that moment, I have to open the door. It’s a big, heavy door. You have to go into the Other Room. Metaphorically, of course. And you have to come back to this side of the room. And you have to shut the door.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

I’m not sure how I’d survive without English Breakfast tea. Even in the Caribbean, I must drink 20 cups a day.

The 14th Amendment was recognized right away to be problematic. The concept of person was both too narrow and too broad, and the courts went to work to overcome both of those flaws.

I’ve made money, and I’ve been ripped off. I’ve had creative freedom, and I’ve been pressured to make hits. I have dealt with diva behavior from crazy musicians, and I have seen genius records by wonderful artists get completely ignored. I love music. I always will.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

I had my first baby at twenty-one.

Many shoulder heavy burdens of righteous responsibility which, on occasion, seem so difficult to bear. I have heard those challenges termed impossible.

Pay attention, don’t let life go by you. Fall in love with the back of your cereal box.

I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along without it.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

It’s a great thing about being pregnant – you don’t need excuses to pee or to eat.

A bachelor’s life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.

In football, it’s the job of the player to play, the coach to coach, the official to officiate. Each guy is charged with upholding his end, nothing more. In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life – or at least the way life should be.

The problem with EMMA is that it is cost prohibitive for the small investors who were supposed to benefit from the new transparency.

For any young democracy, the most difficult but important step is burying the legacy of tyranny and establishing an economy and a government and institutions that abide by the rule of law. Every country faces challenges to the rule of law, including my own.

If I forget to pray, I can’t get through the day without snapping at people.

After momma gave birth to 12 of us kids, we put her up on a pedestal. It was mostly to keep Daddy away from her.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

Last year we said, ‚Things can’t go on like this‘, and they didn’t, they got worse.

Boot camp sucks – SEAL training sucks – but you know what? That’s what makes you good.

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn’t interest you, don’t do it – I would have made a terrible mother.

I was raised by a mother who told me I was great every day of my life.