“What distinguished Obama was his determination not to wait until he had forged a longer political record of his achievement, and the historic conjunction of events that made possible so unlikely a candidacy.”

“But history is replete with potential candidates for the presidency who waited too long rather than example of people who ran too soon." - David Axelrod”

“An outgoing president nearly always defines the next elections, Axelrod wrote, and people almost never seek a replica - certainly not after the presidency of George W. Bush.”

“There is hardly anything at all. His life is suddenly a large, empty house, with each vacant room waiting to be furnished. His made-up wife. His invented father. His pretend childhood. He wonders if it is possible to unlie yourself. ”

“..his tone, like warm maple syrup, drizzled down her spine and licked all the way back up.”

“It no longer matters who consider themselves the masters of events. Events no longer obey their masters.”

“The Chinese poet George Wu ... recorded on his comlog: "Poets are the mad midwives to reality. They see not what is, nor what can be, but what must become." Later, on his last disk to his lover the week before he died, Wu said: "Words are the only bullets in truth's bandolier. And poets are the snipers.”