Let's face it. My dad was a mechanic, and my mom was a cop: my college options in seventh grade didn't look that great. And the chance I got to go to college and experience college life is something that's pretty precious to me.
Here in America, those who once had no hope will give their kids the chance at a life they always wanted for themselves. Here in America, generations of unfulfilled dreams will finally come to pass.
People don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better.
I spent my first three weeks there on a wing with 21 murderers. I met some very evil people there but also some men who'd had no upbringing, no chance in life.
Some kids win the lottery at birth; far too many don't - and most people have a hard time catching up over the rest of their lives. Children raised in disadvantaged environments are not only much less likely to succeed in school or in society, but they are also much less likely to be healthy adults.
I believe, in life, you always get a second chance.
My father passed away a few days before my election. This man, an African American born to a poor single mother in 1936 in the South, would worry in the last years of his life that he had better life chances when he was growing up than a young man born in the same circumstances would have today.
I respect the police officers, but something you learn as a young black man in this country is that... life is a little bit different for you even though, on the surface, it seems to be the same.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and feel like going straight back to bed. But I still have to get up and work, and I still have to take advantage of the chances I've been given in life.
If life were like a competitive race, some people would be given a flying start and others would line up with weights tied to their ankles.
African Americans are concerned about the scourge of abortion in their community, and respond to related facts and figures. Large majorities agree that every life should have a chance, regardless of race, socioeconomic status or circumstance.
At 18, I could have not been here. I could have been another statistic. All the odds were in favour of my just going to prison at that age. I had no visions of being a superstar.
A person should not have a second class life because he chose the wrong parents.
I didn't think I'd even know a president of the United States, let alone work in the White House. Even though my parents always said you can do whatever you want to do, I never dreamed of this kind of an opportunity.
I believe you only have one chance on this earth, and I'm just trying to live my life and do what makes me happy.
I'm very happy for the Contreras family. They're out. Now they've got a chance to experience life the way I did as a kid. You know, his kids are going to have a real chance in life now, and the same way that I had it.
He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not 'studying a profession', for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances.
I didn't become leader to transform the Liberal Democrats into an enlarged form of the Electoral Reform Society. It's not the be all and end all for us. There are other very, very key ambitions in politics, not least social mobility and life chances, that I care about as passionately if not more.
I was a prosecutor for 25 years. I saw so many 15, 16, even 20 year-olds who could not read, had little hope that they would ever find work, faced more challenges than opportunities in life, dropped out of school at some point, and turned to crime.
Most seem to think that while a person may not be responsible for the opportunities he gets in life, each is entirely responsible for what he makes of these opportunities.
I used to live in a street in Bristol which was, depending on your tabloid of choice, either Britain's most dangerous street or a moral cesspit. People made judgments about me on where I lived. It affected me - it affected my life chances. That is going on today with people in social housing. That, to me, isn't acceptable.
A child's geographic location, race or parent's income level should not predetermine their life's course and it's up to us to see that they don't.
There are always opportunities one cannot pass up.
My mom and dad worked very hard to give me the best chance in - not just in golf but in life. You know, I was an only child, you know, my dad worked three jobs at one stage. My mom worked night shifts in a factory.
It's kind of almost not fair that certain people don't get the opportunities that others get just because of where they are born or where they were brought up.
