When I think about how I understand my role as citizen, setting aside being president, and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I’ve learned I think I’ve learned from novels. It has to do with empathy. It has to do with being comfortable with the notion that the world is complicated and full of grays, - http://www2.nybooks.com/articles/s3/2015/nov/19/president-obama-marilynne-robinson-conversation-2.html