What we should be asking is not whether we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter and better government.

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.

Be positive in your thoughts, passionate in your words and purposeful in your actions. Clean thoughts, Cool words and Clear actions are the impressions that appeal to success.

Now go stand in the corner and think about what you did.

I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence.

The events of the day inspired me to become a lawyer.

The human face is as strange to me as a countenance, which, the more one looks at it, the more it closes itself off and escapes by the steps of unknown stairways.

To be proud of knowledge is to be blind with light.

I now can be sure that, once I start writing a book, I'll be able to finish it. I've also become more assured about my 'voice' as a writer and being able to keep the characters true to themselves.

I started to realise that being impolite saves an awful lot of time and costs you nothing.

My book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.

I'm much more into bad, trashy Belgian techno. I like that much more than rock bands. The whole idea of a rock band is so archaic.