“If you think Independence Day is America's defining holiday, think again. Thanksgiving deserves that title, hands-down.”

“Every one of our greatest national treasures, our liberty, enterprise, vitality, wealth, military power, global authority, flow from a surprising source: our ability to give thanks.”

“Pet lovers know that animals sometimes understand us better than we do, and the annals of human sin and desire provide plenty of stories to drive the point home.”

“The business of peace requires more than showing up with paint brushes, foodstuffs and an oil pipeline or two.”

“It serves notice that President Bush is serious about promoting freedom, because free societies are a lot more peaceable than dictatorships and monarchies.”

“I have seen the best of you, and the worst of you, and I choose both.”

“Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.”

“Was it possible that the emotion of love had somehow made me more susceptible to fear? Does the noble emotion of love make us start valuing our own lives and the lives of our loved ones more so tha...”

“If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.”

“Voting is a civic sacrament.”

“In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport.”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”