A brook can be a friend in a special way. It talks to you with splashy gurgles. It cools your toes and lets you sit quietly beside it when you don't feel like speaking.

Adversity often activates a strength we did not know we had.

Do not be sad that you have suffered, be glad that you have lived.

Friendships begin because, even without words, we understand how someone feels.

Between loving friends there need be no secrets . . . the trusting heart is always safe with another who truly cares.

Influence: What you think you have until you try to use it.

In the history of this country [USA], the reason we have never developed a social democratic base, the way they have in Europe - we're the only Western country without some kind of universal health care. There's a reason, and it is because corporate interests have divided the American people by race and ethnicity, the Irish from the blacks, the Germans from the German Jews.