I know that campaigns can seem small, and even silly. Trivial things become big distractions. Serious issues become sound bites. And the truth gets buried under an avalanche of money and advertising. If you're sick of hearing me approve this message, believe me - so am I.

I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money.

We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.

We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.'

When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - an avian flu pandemic.

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

We're not a fragile people. We're not a frightful people. Our power doesn't come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don't look to be ruled.

What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal - that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will.

Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,' he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. 'Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do.

The thing about hip-hop today is it's smart, it's insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.

You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.

What I think is fair to say is that, coming out of the Republican camp, there have been efforts to suggest that perhaps I'm not who I say I am when it comes to my faith - something which I find deeply offensive, and that has been going on for a pretty long time.

After a century of trying, we declared that healthcare in America is not a privilege for a few, it is a right for everybody. After decades of talk, we finally began to wean ourselves off foreign oil. We doubled our production of clean energy. We brought more of our troops home to their families, and we delivered justice to Osama bin Laden.

Are we a nation that educates the world's best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us? Or are we a nation that encourages them to stay and create jobs, businesses, and industries right here in America?

So long as I'm Commander-in-Chief, we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known. When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you've served us - because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they need when they come home.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Food Stamp recipients didn't cause the financial crisis; recklessness on Wall Street did.

Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.

Every positive value has its price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.

Action is the foundational key to all success.

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.

Sculpture is the art of the intelligence.

Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.

Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.

I do not seek. I find.

It takes a long time to become young.

Youth has no age.

Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs.

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.

Love is the greatest refreshment in life.

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.

My mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.

There are only two types of women - goddesses and doormats.

Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.

Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock.

Everything you can imagine is real.

I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.