“I think we are born into this world and inherit all the grudges and rivalries and hatreds and sins of the past. But we also inherit the beauty and the joy and goodness of our forebears. And we’re on this planet a pretty short time, so that we cannot remake the world entirely during this little stretch that we have. But I think our decisions matter. At the end of the day, we’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.”
President Barack Obama
The New Yorker 90th anniversary issue, February 23—March 2, 2015