"Photo of POTUS mtg w speechwriters Cody Keenan and Jon Favreau today."

-- Pete Souza

“Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.”
“The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, weâ€™ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college arenâ€™t causes of middle-class status, theyâ€™re markers for possessing the kinds of traits â€” self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. â€” that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesnâ€™t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.”
“There is a strong link between the following three things: exporting, manufacturing and the degree of saving by the population. It's complicated, but if the population doesn't save, the economy will not tend to export as much, and if it doesn't export as much, it won't manufacture enough.”
“When we set our hearts on knowing the truth, we assist one another in the long tender work of awakening. When the story is right, and the people we love are waiting to listen, we tell each other how to live.”
“I learned to focus and work hard and not give up. I learned that every obstacle is really an opportunity.”

Source : "'Glee' Star to Write a Book" by Antoinette Bueno, www.etonline.com. July 2, 2012.
“In the end, people don't view their life as merely the average of all its moments-which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people's minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.”

Source : Atul Gawande (2014). “Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End”, p.162, Profile Books
“deep down I believe my year was a special year: it produced me.”
“To be next to her was to have everything.”

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