FACTBOX: Quotes from President Obama on Kennedy Center honorees

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama spoke on Sunday at a White House reception honoring recipients of the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors. Here are some of his remarks on each of the five honorees.

THE HONOREES - "Today it is our great joy to celebrate performers who have transformed the arts of America."

"They are ... living reminders of a simple truth -- and I'm going to steal a line from (First Lady) Michelle (Obama) here -- the arts are not somehow apart from our national life, the arts are at the heart of our national life."

"In times of war and sacrifice, the arts -- and these artists -- remind us to sing and to laugh and to live."

"In moments of division or doubt, they compel us to see the common values that we share; the ideals to which we aspire, even if we sometimes fall short. In days of hardship, they renew our hope that brighter days are still ahead."

"So let's never forget that art strengthens America. And that's why we're making sure that America strengthens its arts. ... And it's why we're honored to celebrate these five remarkable performers, who for decades have helped to sustain and strengthen the American spirit."

DAVE BRUBECK -- "You can't understand America without understanding jazz and you can't understand jazz without understanding Dave Brubeck."

"Perhaps it was World War II, his service in Patton's Army, that changed his sound, forcing him, as he said, to work the war out of his system by playing some 'pretty vicious piano.'

"Whatever it was, his sound -- the distinctive harmonies and improvisations of the Dave Brubeck Quartet -- would change jazz forever, prompting Time magazine to put him on the cover as the leader of a new jazz age."

"Having brought jazz into the mainstream, he then transformed it, with innovative new rhythms on albums like Time Out, the first jazz album to ever sell more than a million copies and still one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time."

"And I know personally how powerful his performances can be. ... In the few weeks that I spent with my father as a child ... one of the things he did was to take me to my first jazz concert, in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1971, and it was a Dave Brubeck concert. And I've been a jazz fan ever since."

MEL BROOKS - "Mel, I'm trying to say something nice about you. Please don't upstage me."

"As you can tell, he was born to entertain. Or, as Mel Brooks explains it: "Look at Jewish history -- unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So every 10 Jews, God designed one to be crazy and amuse the others."

"But World War II meant service in the Army -- or, as he put it, "the European Theater of Operations" with "lots of operations" and "very little theater."

"Unfortunately, many of the punch lines that have defined Mel Brooks' success cannot be repeated here. I was telling him that I went to see 'Blazing Saddles' -- when I was 10. And he pointed out that I think, according to the ratings, I should not have been allowed in the theater. I think that's true. I got a fake ID. I think the statute of limitations has passed."

"But behind all the insanity and absurdity, there's been a method to Mel's madness. He's described his work as 'unearthing the truth that is all around us.' By illuminating uncomfortable truths -- about racism and sexism and anti-Semitism -- he's been called 'our jester, asking us to see ourselves as we really are, determined that we laugh ourselves sane.'"

GRACE BUMBRY - Reflecting on the challenge of finding one's voice, Grace Bumbry once said: "God has already planted that in your throat. It's your job to free it up, to allow that beautiful thing to shine through."

"True to her name, Grace allowed her voice to shine through and touch all those within its range. Around her family's piano in St. Louis ... and then, after being turned away from one music school because of the color of her skin -- her triumphant international debut at the Paris Opera."

"With a pitch and presence like no other, she became a global sensation, moving audiences at the great opera houses of the world. And performing here at the White House, it was said that she moved Jacqueline Kennedy to lean over and gently sing along the words to the president."

"Defying every expectation, Grace Bumbry then made the transition from mezzo to soprano. And over the decades that followed, she displayed a range like few others -- sometimes the middle ranges as a mezzo; sometimes the highs of a soprano; sometimes both in the same performance."

ROBERT DE NIRO - "Growing up in New York City's Little Italy, Bobby De Niro always knew what he wanted to be. Coming home from the movies, he'd act out the parts. At age 10, in his school play, he made a rather unlikely debut in The Wizard of Oz as the Cowardly Lion."

"He has said: 'My joy as an actor is to live different lives.' And in more than 60 films spanning more than 40 years, Robert De Niro has lived some of the most iconic and intense characters ever portrayed on film."

"Versatility, from a coma patient in 'Awakenings,' to an ever-possessive father in Meet The Parents. ... There's his legendary method -- not simply portraying characters, but becoming them, emotionally and physically.

"And there is his love for his city, whether it's directing films like 'A Bronx Tale,' or founding the film center and festival that has energized the arts in New York City."

"It is perhaps the great irony of his life -- one of America's greatest cinematic actors is a man, famously, of few words off the screen -- and I can attest to this."

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - "Finally, we honor the quiet kid from Jersey -- who grew up to become the rock 'n' roll laureate of a generation. For in the life of our country only a handful of people have tapped the full power of music to tell the real American story -- with honesty; from the heart; and one of those people is Bruce Springsteen."

"He has said: 'I've always believed that people listen to your music not to find out about you, but to find out about themselves.' And for more than three decades, in his songs -- of dreams and despair, of struggle and hope -- hard-working folks have seen themselves."

"It's no wonder that his tours are not so much concerts, but communions. There's a place for everybody -- the sense that no matter who you are or what you do, everyone deserves their shot at the American Dream; everybody deserves a little bit of dignity; everybody deserves to be heard."

"I've seen it myself. ... When I watched him on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial when he rocked the National Mall before my inauguration, I thought it captured as well as anything the spirit of what America should be about. On a day like that, and today, I remember: I'm the President, but he's The Boss."

(Compiled by Todd Eastham in Washington, editing by Chris Wilson)