Who are we to say what's right for civilizations that were already thousands of years old when our own nation came into being?

this is what I know about courage: You don't have to think about courage to have it. You don't have to feel courageous to be courageous. You don't sit down and say you're going to be courageous. At the moment of action, you don't see it as a courageous act. Courage is the most hidden thing from your eye or mind until after it's done. There's some inner something that tells you what's right. You know you have to do it to survive as a human being. You have no choice.

There's no job too big to benefit from a small town person's perspective, I discovered, just as there's no town too small for thinking big.

The United States of America is the richest country in the world; yet we're the worst at taking care of poor people.

Movements are not radical. Movements are the American way. A small group of abolitionists writing and speaking eventually led to the end of slavery. A few stirred-up women brought about women's voting. The Populist movement, the Progressive movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the women's movement - the examples go on and on of 'little people' getting together and telling the truth about their lives. They made our government act.

Politics is not just about voting one day every four years. Politics is the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the road we walk on.

To make a small town achieve its potential, you need everybody. When a blind person carries a crippled person who can see, both of them get where they're going.