“This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this presidential campaign — to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for president at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together, unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction — toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren.” — President Barack Obama, March 2008
“It’s no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.” — Golda Meir
“Women became the headline, the social change of my adulthood.” — Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe Columnist
“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.” – Jack London
“Some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity…” — Gilda Radner
“Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.” — Janis Joplin
“Cross your heart and kiss your elbow.” — Breakfast At Tiffany’s
“You’re still reaching for the moon [Sabrina]‘ …. ‘No, father, the moon is reaching for me.’” – Sabrina
“We were poets and painters, all just a little more or a little less twenty years old, supplied with a precious load of thoughtless madness that needed to be used, to expand, to explode.” — Pablo Neruda
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” — EE Cummings
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’” – Jack Kerouac