Claire Messud Quotes

President Obama celebrates diversity, yet instinctively seeks common ground and builds on that common ground to make progress.

I think there are a lot of successful people in this country who connect amazingly well with the American people and have - and one of the reasons they are successful is because they connect well.

Lincoln would love the fact that Obama is such a great conciliator, trying to transcend ideology.

Obama's extraordinary political skills suggest he is more than capable of rising above any personal historical grudges he may have inherited.

I admire Obama.

Jennifer [Palmieri], could it possibly be that Hillary Clinton just doesn't connect with people, that she just doesn't relate to people, that Hillary Clinton doesn't have anything in common with anybody?

Barack Obama and his followers and his adorers have decided he can bring us all together, that he can reach across aisles, he can reach across oceans. Who knows, he might be able to reach across galaxies, bring people together, to find common ground from the mountaintop, and so, my friends.

In 30 years of travel and training leaders -164 nations - I've never met anyone who didn't need massive doses of love.

I'm going to try to unite all Americans.

No one is asking for an Oprah in Chief. Anyhow, Obama is too chilly by nature ever to be convincing as a human care package.

Motherhood was the great equaliser for me; I started to identify with everybody.

Be kind. It's worthwhile to make an effort to learn about other people and figure out what you might have in common with them. If you allow yourself to be somewhat curious - and if you get into the habit of doing that - it's the first step to being open minded and realizing that your points of view aren't totally opposite.

I've always thought Anne-Marie Slaughter would make a fantastic United States Senator or something. She's a real intellectual, but she's got enormous communicative skills and she's got government experience. The thing that drives me slightly crazy is the way we think about intellectuals as wooly, hopeless, arrogant, self-deceived, incapable.

President Obama has his faults, but overall, I think, is a good president.

I've found that the common humanity of people is the most relatable thing, and even if your stories are very specific about a different place, if you have a relatable core of humanity, people will go along with it.

Obama's entire foreign policy was predicated on the notion that by existing, he would bridge all gaps and bury all hatchets. Instead, the Muslim world burns his picture even as he tells them he respects their radicalism. It turns out that diversity is a one-way street for the devotees of global Islam.

America is exceptional: but because it yields the likes of Obama, not the likes of Bush.

It is easier to speak to those who have had similar experiences than to those who are as yet ignorant.

When they see me holding fish, they can see that I am comfortable with kings as well as with paupers.

I hope Mr. Obama has success.

The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness.

I'm not saying Obama is right on everything. Of course not. He may be wrong on a number of things. But what I do know is that he behaves like a very, very sane man almost all the time.

Readers prefer a world they can relate to.

If people don't sit at Chaplin's feet, he goes out and stands where they are sitting.

Talk to people in their own language. If you do it well, they'll say, 'God, he said exactly what I was thinking.' And when they begin to respect you, they'll follow you to the death.