I could say, as a member of Congress, we usually get an alert if something is going to happen at the Capitol.

You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Keep exploring. Keep dreaming. Keep asking why. Don’t settle for what you already know. Never stop believing in the power of your ideas, your imagination, your hard work to change the world.

When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk.

Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

Change is never easy, but always possible.

Don’t ever let anybody tell you that your efforts don’t matter or that your voice doesn’t count. Don’t ever believe that you can’t make a difference. You have.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up.

Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.

If somebody is different from you, that's not something you criticize, that's something that you appreciate.

Three of them have the gift of sight but two of them ignore it when what they want most is to believe "this one" will be different.

I would prefer to be a citizen of an independent country rather than Emperor of an enslaved one.

Men are gentle, honest and straightforward. Women are convoluted, deceptive and dangerous.

The corporate killer downsizing is directly responsive to what the mutual funds have wanted.

I don't really see how any song can not feel contrived if it isn't honest, and how could I write honest songs if I don't write about stuff going on in my life and how I'm feeling?

I had to survive a lot. I didn't premeditate my life. Life just happened as it did. And I had to figure it out as I went along.

I was happy in Dublin because it is very cosmopolitan.

The ideas get under your skin. I am honored and deeply excited by the thought that the next generation of writers, or whomever, are influenced by these books.

Human Nature Baby, grab it and growl.

I am inclined to believe that one who is a coward will be born after death as an insect or a worm, that there is no salvation for a coward even after millions of years of penance.