50 Ways You Can Help Obama Change America by Michael Huttner and Jason Salzman is a handbook for American citizens who want to do their part to make sure the president’s promise of hope comes to fruition. Each chapter opens with a quote from Barack Obama. Here’s a sampling:

Continuing the Fight to Change America

This Victory alone is not the change we seek—it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

—President-elect Barack Obama, election night victory speech, November 4, 2008, Grant Park, Chicago, IL

Climate Change and a New Green Revolution

At a time when our ice caps are melting and our oceans are rising, we need you to help lead a green revolution. We still have time to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change if we get serious about investing in renewable sources of energy, and if we get a generation of volunteers to work on renewable energy projects, and teach folks about conservation, and help clean up polluted areas; and if we send talented engineers and scientists abroad to help developing countries promote clean energy.

—Senator Barack Obama,  Wesleyan University Commencement,  May 25, 2008, Middletown, CT

Healthcare Reform

I want to wake up and know that every single American has health care when they need it, that every senior has prescription drugs they can afford, and that no parents are going to bed at night worrying about how they’ll afford medicine for a sick child. That’s the future we can build together.

—Senator Barack Obama,  Town Hall, June 5, 2008, Bristol, VA

Organized Labor

We’re ready to play offense for organized labor. It’s time we had a president who didn’t choke saying the word “union.” A president who knows it’s the Department of Labor and not the Department of Management. And a president who strengthens our unions by letting them do what they do best-organize our workers. If a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union. It’s that simple. Let’s stand up to the business lobby that’s been getting their friends in Washington to block card check. I’ve fought to pass the Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate. And I will make it the law of the land when I’m President of the United States of America.

—Senator Barack Obama,  remarks to AFL-CIO,  April 2, 2008, in Philadelphia, PA

Arts Education

We have to just improve arts and music funding generally-in schools but also outside of schools. And the endowment for the arts, our support of the public arts, our support for arts institutions-all those things should be a priority. And they don’t cost that much money. They really don’t. But you get such a big payoff. And one last point…part of what arts education does is it teaches people to see each other through each others’ eyes. It teaches us to respect and understand people who are not like us. And that makes us better citizens and makes our democracy work better and that’s something I strongly believe in.

—Senator Barack Obama,  Town Hall Meeting,  April 2, 2008, Wallingford, PA

Volunteering and Community Service

I’ve met countless people of all ages and walks of life who want nothing more than to do their part. I’ve seen a rising generation of young people work and volunteer and turn out in record numbers. They’re a generation that came of age amidst the horrors of 9/11 and Katrina; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; an economic crisis without precedent. And yet despite all this, or more likely because of it, they have become a generation of activists possessed with that most American of ideas-that people who love their country can change it.

—President Barack Obama signing the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act at the SEED School, April 21, 2008, Washington DC

Race

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand-that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

—Senator Barack Obama,  “A More Perfect Union” speech,  March 18, 2008, Philadelphia, PA

The Developing World

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’sresouces without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

—President Barack Obama, inaugural speech,  January 20, 2009, Washington DC

The Role of Parents in a Child’s Education

In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child. I speak to you not just as a president, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our children’s education must begin at home.

—President Barack Obama,  addressing a joint session of Congress,  February 24, 2009, Washington DC

Patriotism and Dissent

Of course, precisely because America isn’t perfect, precisely because our ideals constantly demand more from us, patriotism can never be defined as loyalty to any particular leader or government or policy. As Mark Twain, that greatest of American satirists and proud son of Missouri, once wrote “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” We may hope that our leaders and our government stand up for our ideals, and there are many times in our history when that’s occurred. But when our laws, our leaders, or our government are out of alignment with our ideals, then the dissent of ordinary Americans may prove to be one of the truest expressions of patriotism.

—Senator Barack Obama, “The America We Love,”  June 30, 2008, Independence, MO

Motivation

I wasn’t one of these folks who at the age of five said to myself, “I’m going to be a U.S. senator.” The motivation for my work has been more rooted in the need to live up to certain values that my mother, more than anybody, instilled in me, and to figure out how you reconcile those values with a world that is broken apart by class and race and nationality. And so I guess I have on occasions had to push myself or I’ve been pushed into service, not always because I thought it was fun or that it was preferable to sitting down and watching a ball game, but because I felt it was necessary.

—Senator Barack Obama, “The Path to Power,” Men’s Vogue, September, 2006