Vance: "Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks, or white trash. I call them neighbors, friends, and family."

Vance: "It's amazing to think how powerful of a force optimism and hope can be. It's the thing that saves me. I believed that I lived in the greatest country in the world. I still believe that, and consequently, I believed that I had a chance, even though things around me were absolutely crazy and difficult."

Vance: "I never wanted to be a public intellectual or a talking head."

Vance: "My military service is the thing I'm most proud of, but when I think of everything happening in the Middle East, I can't help but tell myself I wish we would have achieved some sort of lasting victory. No one touched that subject before Trump, especially not in the Republican Party."

Vance: "I have never felt out of place in my entire life. But I did at Yale."

Vance: "At a pivotal time in my life, Barack Obama gave me hope that a boy who grew up like me could still achieve the most important of my dreams. For that, I'll miss him and the example he set."

Vance: "Trump's biggest failure as a political leader is that he sees the worst in people, and he encourages the worst in people."

Vance: "Stanford's law school application wasn't the standard combination of college transcript, LSAT score, and essays. It required a personal sign-off from the dean of your college: You had to submit a form, completed by the dean, attesting that you weren't a loser."

Vance: "Not every town can or should be saved."

Vance: "People listen to what their political leaders are telling them, and my view is both that Trump is tapping into some racially ugly attitudes, but also that he is leading people to racially ugly attitudes."

Vance: "Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation's highest office."