Country Kids Quotes & Sayings

Fuck hope and all the tiny little towns, one-horse towns, the one-stoplight towns, three-bars country-music jukebox-magic parquet-towns, pressure-cooker pot-roast frozen-peas bad-coffee married-heterosexual towns, crying-kids-in-the-Oldsmobile-beat-your-kid-in the-Thriftway-aisles towns, one-bank one-service-station Greyhound-Bus-stop-at-the-Pepsi-Cafe towns, two-television towns, Miracle Mile towns, Viv's Double Wide Beauty Salon towns, schizophrenic-mother towns, buy-yourself-a-handgun towns, sister-suicide towns, only-Injun's-a-dead-Injun towns, Catholic-Protestant-Mormon-Baptist religious-right five-churches Republican-trickle-down-to-poverty family-values sexual-abuse pro-life creation-theory NRA towns, nervous-mother rodeo-clown-father those little-town-blues towns. — Tom Spanbauer

A third of our kids, after we spend more per student than any country in the world other than a couple rounding errors, 30 percent are college- and/or career-ready. — Jeb Bush

All over the world, children facing the challenges of poverty attend schools that aren't designed to meet their extra needs; across country lines, the lives of marginalized kids look far more similar than they do different. — Wendy Kopp

Brad got me this great thing for Christmas. It's a bookshelf that has a book on every religion. That's how we plan to raise our kids. Teach them about all religions. They can pick one or be a student of all of them. We'll celebrate Kwanzaa for our girl. We'll celebrate moon and water festivals for our boys. We'll take them to temples in certain countries. Also to church. — Angelina Jolie

I love playing for my country, getting the support. Especially for the kids and everybody, showing my example of what I can achieve so early. And maybe they can achieve it, too, just to get that in their minds. — Maria Sharapova

Don't kid yourself. Global warming is no joke. Here's how serious global warming has gotten to be in the United States. In this country global warming is so bad, we are now actually starting to warm up to Barry Bonds. — David Letterman

I had been very focused on the issue of education disparities in our country, and literally, by the time kids are just nine years old, in low-income communities, they're already three or four grade levels behind nine-year-olds in high-income communities. — Wendy Kopp

When I looked around the neighborhood, I found out that kids wasn't the only crooks. We was surrounded by crooks, and plenty of 'em was guys that were supposed to be legit, like the landlords and the storekeepers and the politicians and cops on the beat. All of 'em was stealin' from somebody. And we had the real pros, the old Dons from the old country, with their big black cars and mustaches to match. We used to make fun of them behind their backs, but our parents were scared to death of them. The only thing is, we knew they was rich, and rich was what counted, because the rich got away with anythin'. — Martin Gosch

I grew up speaking English and Spanish. I grew up moving from country to country due to political, governmental, and social issues and just family atmosphere that wasn't right to bring up your kid in a country where there's a dictatorship or a communist type sense, so I incorporate that int music. — Cristian Machado

Unfortunately, in some parts of the country, some kids are taught at an early age that being different is somehow bad or wrong or worthy of ridicule. — Matt Bomer

The New York Times - but the whole country gives it that weight. It's like the Asian kid in math class. Everybody in the media cheats off The New York Times. — Bill Maher

And in the past, Archie wondered, was it just that fewer people cheated? Were they more honest, and did they leave their front doors open, did they leave their kids with the neighbors, pay social calls, run up tabs with the butcher? The funny thing about getting old in a country is people always want to hear that from you. They want to hear it really was once a green and pleasant land. They need it. — Zadie Smith

There lots of other kids playing in streets around this country today who are going to be dead tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day and month, because other young people are reading the kinds of things and seeing the kinds of things that are available in the media today. — Ted Bundy

A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHECKLIST If we want our kids to have a shot at making it in the world as eighteen-year-olds, without the umbilical cord of the cell phone being their go-to solution in all manner of things, they're going to need a set of basic life skills. Based upon my observations as dean, and the advice of parents and educators around the country, here are some examples of practical things they'll need to know how to do before they go to college - and here are the crutches that are currently hindering them from standing up on their own two feet: 1. An eighteen-year-old must be able to talk to strangers - faculty, deans, advisers, landlords, store clerks, human resource managers, coworkers, bank tellers, health care providers, bus drivers, mechanics - in the real world. — Julie Lythcott-Haims

The country is making a big mistake not teaching kids to cook and raise a garden and build fires. — Loretta Lynn

Both my parents were a tremendous influence on me. My father's influence came from - he decided well, probably before we were born that as he put it, 'I'm not going to have any kids who are country club bums.' — Charles Koch

Poor-country surf communities can be complex and, to some extent, leveling. The fisherman's kid is competing head to head with the plutocrat's gilded son. Your father can't buy you a good frontside hack. — William Finnegan

My wife Kari and I have three incredible kids. And like parents everywhere, we want our children to grow up in a country and a world that is peaceful, and where, if they work hard, they can reach their God-given potential. — Denis McDonough

Selflessness involves giving up your self. You become a martyr. Like the Hindu kamikaze warriors. These Japanese Hindus chose to give up their lives, and they were killed if they didn't. Imagine what their families felt. One day you have a father, and next, you're watching him fly a plane into a ship on Pearl Harbor on television. Those kids didn't do anything wrong. They just lived in an evil country. The axis of evil. That sort of evil is beyond anything you or I will experience in our lifetimes. So be glad. Be glad we live in the US of A. Be glad we get to choose, with our freedoms. Now get out there and fight! — Bill Konigsberg

Now, you look here! The first thing you got to understand is that all this uplift and flipflop and settlement-work and recreation is nothing in God's world but the entering wedge for socialism. The sooner a man learns he isn't going to be coddled, and he needn't expect a lot of free grub and, uh, all these free classes and flipflop and doodads for his kids unless he earns 'em, why, the sooner he'll get on the job and produce - produce - produce! That's what the country needs, and not all this fancy stuff that just enfeebles the will-power of the working man and gives his kids a lot of notions above their class. — Sinclair Lewis

We've got great potential in our country and the only way we're going to make sure kids are getting the degrees that they need, make sure we're getting through that red tape, is by working together. — Amy Klobuchar

Let us all say together: "We want to build a green economy strong enough to life people out of poverty. We want to create green pathways out of poverty and into great careers for America's children. We want this 'green wave' to life all boats. This country can save the polar bears and poor kids too. — Van Jones

Even if he doesn't go to college, he could at least learn to make something. Nobody in this country knows how to sink a nail anymore. They're all dependent on the tradesmen their kids are taught not to become. — Lionel Shriver

If we're going to ask our kids at age 18 to go off to war and die for their country, I don't see any problem with asking them at age 16 to think about what that might mean. — M T Anderson

Find a way to say yes to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learn something new. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it's a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means that you will do something new, meet someone new, and make a difference. Yes lets you stand out in a crowd, be the optimist, see the glass full, be the one everyone comes to. Yes is what keeps us all young. — Eric Schmidt

Here, those kids are called nerds and geeks and dorks. This may be the only country where people make fun of the smart kids. Now that's stupid. I only hope that the engineer who built the bridge I drive across or the nurse who administers our vaccines or the teacher who teaches my kids was a total nerd. — Firoozeh Dumas

Civics is not only how to run the country before it's your turn to run the country; it is, in fact, the study of power, practical political power. And you must start that process at an age level when kids' brains are still open and malleable. — Richard Dreyfuss

Hockey historians say the handshake dates to English settlers in Canada, who preached an upper-class version of sportsmanship in the 19th century. Soon, tough kids in urban and prairie rinks began imitating imagined dukes and earls of the old country. — George Vecsey

I assume the only reason we have them is so that white people feel relevant in sports. Because other than that the only thing the winter Olympics show me is which country has more rich white kids. What's it cost to go skiing - $900 a day? I can't believe that's not more popular in the inner cities. — Daniel Tosh

I change the channel to another movie. An old one, but new to me. And, ironically, a thin, gorgeous blonde - Meg Ryan, maybe - rides her bike on a country road. She smiles like she has no cares in the world. Like no one ever judges her. Like her life is perfect. Wind through her hair and sunshine on her face. The only thing missing are the rainbows and butterflies and cartoon birds singing on her shoulder.

Maybe I should grab my bike and try to catch up with Mom, Mike, and the kids. They can't be going very fast. I would love to feel like that, even if it's just for a second - free and peaceful and normal.
Suddenly, there's a truck. It can't be headed toward Meg Ryan. Could it? Yes. Oh my God. No! Meg Ryan just got hit by that truck.

Figures. See what happens when you exercise? — K.A. Barson

That was national news. Everyone all over the country heard my father's hatred toward us. I can't believe he brought the kids into this," Kane said. "Honey, I don't care about that. I'm worried about you. He didn't look like he was too much on his deathbed. That was an awful nice house they were standing in front of," Avery said, his tone turning harder. "I send them money every month," Kane confessed. "I know, and he sure cashes those checks. He didn't mention that, did he?" Avery asked. — Kindle Alexander

My heart goes out to many women that I've met across the country who barely make enough to make a living, and they want to have kids. That's very understandable, but what do you do with the kids? — Eric Braeden

The rich people are apparently leaving America. They're giving up their citizenship. These great lovers of America who made their money in this country-when you ask them to pay their fair share of taxes they run abroad. We have 19-year old kids who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan defending this country. They went abroad. Not to escape taxes. They're working class kids who died in wars and now billionaires want to run abroad to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. What patriotism! What love of country! — Bernie Sanders

Socially, hip-hop has done more for racial camaraderie in this country than any one thing. 'Cause guys like me, my kids - everyone under 45 either grew up loving hip-hop or hating hip-hop, but everyone under 45 grew up very aware of hip-hop. So when you're a white kid and you're listening to this music and you're being exposed to it every day on MTV, black people become less frightening. This is just a reality. What hip-hop has done bringing people together is enormous. — Michael Rapaport

On July 4th, we renew our commitment to the American Idea-the belief that all men are created equal. We read the Declaration. We tell our kids the history. We remember those who died to protect our country. And along the way, we remind ourselves of why we love it. — Paul Ryan

If your kids attend school and grades are up that will make $1,000 contributions to some 10,000 kids across the country, are challenging kids to learn foreign languages or challenging kids to get summer jobs or seek summer enrichment opportunities? — Harold Ford Jr.

We are cutting things kids like-music, art, and gym classes; stuff that kept me in school. This country can't survive without you kids. It's all about you kids. — Tony Danza

I'm not ashamed to be a Christian. But you don't have to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. — Rick Perry

We inherited a strong and flourishing country, and instead of making the investments - that is, the sacrifices - to maintain it, we chose to suck it dry and stick our children with the bill. If you want to see who is to blame for student debt, just look in the mirror. And if parents find themselves supporting kids beyond their college years, that is only, in the aggregate, a form of compensatory justice: the intergenerational transfer of wealth that should have been effected through taxation. — William Deresiewicz

There were many generations of Latino people coming to this country, coming from difficult political or social situations in their own countries, and they worked very hard to have their kids go to universities. Well, those kids came out and they are now doctors and architects, or they are on the Supreme Court. That has a reflection in Hollywood. So, we are actually very proud that our characters are Latinos, and I think it's good for diversity and cultural interaction. — Antonio Banderas

Rose worked and played so hard that kids all across the country - not just in Cincinnati - were emulating him on sandlots everywhere, proud to dirty their jerseys doing a headfirst "Pete Rose" dive into cardboard boxes used for bases ... whether they needed to slide or not. — Tucker Elliot

What if more and more parents, grandparents and kids around the country band together to create outdoor adventure clubs, family nature networks, family outdoor clubs, or green gyms? What if this approach becomes the norm in every community? — Richard Louv

To me it hit home when the US took away the pledge of allegiance from the kids in school. People that migrate to come to this country can't learn to love a flag that means universal freedom no matter where you come from, you can come here to try and have a better life. — Cristian Machado

In our country, the problem we have in our public school system across the country is that music and arts are on the bottom of the pole, if it's there at all. So the kids aren't exposed to music. I must speak to the music they hear at home too. — Ramsey Lewis

Approximately 82% of the American people believe labeling should take place with regard to genetically engineered ingredients. All over this country people are increasingly concerned about the quality of the food they are ingesting and the food they are giving to their kids. People want to know what is in their food, and I believe that is a very reasonable request. — Bernie Sanders

There are African-American families around this country - a large, large number of African-American families - that operate out of complete fear that their kids are going to be taken from them and will do anything to prevent that. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I've noticed there are overnight camping trips that are reenactments of that arrival. In the promotional photos advertising the trip, entire families wear costumes and indeed pull a handcart over the granite rocks and creek beds of the nearby canyons and back country. The kids learns how very little actually can be brought in one of these carts
no television, for instance
and the parents learn a lot more than they bargain for, I expect; how shallow our own civilizing is, and the iron grip you have to keep on the instinct to wheedle and blame and shove, and how tender our feet will always be. — Liz Stephens

I support a total ban on handgun ownership for anyone under eighteen. Uzis should be absolutely banned from entering this country. Automatic weapons of any kind should not be for sale in America. For that matter, toy Uzis should not be available for kids, either. There would be a minimum seven-day waiting period between applying for a gun permit and obtaining a gun. — Joycelyn Elders

I'm interested in what it means to live in America. I'm interested in the kind of country that we live in and leave our kids. I'm interested in trying to define what that country is. I got the chutzpa or whatever you want to say to believe that if I write a really good about it, it's going to make a difference. — Bruce Springsteen

The best pay off in the world is when someone comes up to you and says, 'your music has helped me with some pretty rough times through life. I don't know if I would still be here if it was for your music whether it be country music or heavy metal has done for me.' That's ultimately the biggest payoff for me. I hear it from young kids to military guys and military women to older folks. — Hank Williams III

I look forward to the day that a lot of the folks that you all talk about and cover on this network will begin to market products for these families and for these kids coming out of junior high school and high school all across the country. — Harold Ford Jr.

As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what's happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don't seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids. — Steve Jobs

I'm going to fall in love with an artist. And we'll have two kids and live in the country. A quiet life, so we can hear our muses and answer when they call.
Tipping up my chin to meet his gaze, he gives me a tender, starlit smile - one that melts my insides. I like your version better. — A.G. Howard

There's a guy walking around a war-torn country, and he comes across a girl who's been killed by a bomb. The guy drops to his knees and goddamn, he cries that it's the worst thing he's ever seen. 'Oh my God, it's terrible. Look at that poor little girl. I can't go on.' When the guy gets up, he walks a few steps and sees five kids who have also been killed and burned by a bomb. Oh God, this is really bad, he thinks, but he gets up and walks until he sees ten girls who have been killed and says, 'What a shame,' as he walks by. By the time he gets to a hundred children who have been bombed and killed, he doesn't even slow down to look. He just doesn't care anymore. — Ole Anderson

As a mother trying to raise kids with some kind of a code, an honorable way to solve problems without using violence, I find it interesting to live in a country where your government is allowed to kill, whether it's war or execution. What interests me is not who deserves to die but who deserves to kill. — Susan Sarandon

My culture comes from everywhere. I'm sick of this notion of nationality, that if you're brought up in the same city or same country you're the same. Even three kids brought up in the same family with the same genes, they are not the same. Just consider a human a human. — Marjane Satrapi

Singapore is now in the top five. Its income per person even tops oil-rich and scarcely populated Kuwait. Having realized that the country had no natural resources, the government of founding father Lee Kuan Yew directed massive investment in human capital. Kids who were eight or ten or thirteen several decades ago are now some of the most productive citizens of today's economy.

A tiny nation-state with no natural resources and a large number of people living in a relatively small physical space has managed to outearn a country with some of the largest oil deposits ever found. That is the power of investing in and nurturing young brains.

Education alone may not be enough to guarantee economic success. There are other success factors that matter, like good governance, rule of law, and access to trading routes and partners. But if you were challenged to assemble a prosperous society from scratch, education would be the first building block you'd want to develop. — John Wood

I understood from a very young age that school was important and that my parents were making great sacrifices for me. Every morning I saw my father get up and go to a job that he didn't really like. They came to France for the same reasons all immigrants move to another country - so their kids could have a better way of life. — Omar Sy

The right wing of the Republican party
which controlled the White House from 1980 to 1992, crucial years in the evolution of motherhood
hated the women's movement and believed all women, with the possible exception of Phyllis Schlafly, should remain in the kitchen on their knees polishing their husband's shoes and golf clubs while teaching their kids that Darwin was a very bad man. Unless the mothers were poor and black
those moms had to get back to work ASAP, because by staying home they were wrecking the country. — Susan Douglas

IT (The country) IS HEADED TOWARD OVERSIMPLIFICATION. YOU WANT TO SEE A PRESIDENT OF THE FUTURE? TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING - FIND ONE OF THOSE HOLY ROLLERS: THAT'S HIM, THAT'S THE NEW MISTER PRESIDENT! AND DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE FUTURE OF ALL THOSE KIDS WHO ARE GOING TO FALL IN THE CRACKS OF THIS GREAT, BIG, SLOPPY SOCIETY OF OURS? I JUST MET HIM; HE'S A TALL, SKINNY, FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY NAMED "DICK." HE'S PRETTY SCARY. WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM IS NOT UNLIKE WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE TV EVANGELIST - OUR FUTURE PRESIDENT. WHAT'S WRONG WITH BOTH OF THEM IS THAT THEY'RE SO SURE THEY'RE RIGHT! THAT'S PRETTY SCARY - THE FUTURE, I THINK, IS PRETTY SCARY. — John Irving

Trance had become a dirty word. Thanks to Ian Van Dahl, Lasgo, Flip 'N' Fill and DJ Sammy, a generation of kids has grown up thinking trance is the shittiest music since country and western. — Paul Van Dyk

Kids who are least impressive in my class are the ones who only listen to one kind of music. They only listen to country or only to rap or to gospel or anything. It's a sad thing. I try really hard to get them to go out and listen to things. It's amazing what you learn ... I'm still trying to learn. It's not like I'm going to be a calypso singer. That's not going to happen, but I'm sure there's something in that, that I can learn from and apply to my own work. — Andy Wilkinson

The old lessons (work, self-discipline, sacrifice, teamwork, fighting to achieve) aren't being taught by many people other than football coaches these days. The football coach has a captive audience and can teach these lessons because the communication lines between himself and his players are more wide open than between kids and parents. We better teach these lessons or else the country's future population will be made up of a majority of crooks, drug addicts, or people on relief. — Bear Bryant

The reason why you were allowed to get away with that in the '60s and '70s is because this country's racist administrative policies were such that rich white kids were getting exemptions. I said no exemptions. — Montel Williams

People in the city are poor because they are oppressed, discriminated against and alienated; people in the country are poor because they're too stupid to realize they ought to be living in the city. — Garret Keizer

Coming from a little suburban town, I wasn't a hip city kid. I was quite the opposite, really. Songs like 'Saturday's Kids' rang a bell for kids all over the country. That song was about the kids I grew up with. — Paul Weller

There's no excuse for domestic violence. It sounds like a challenge. I mean, does everything have to be so black-and-white in this kindergarten country of ours? What if you come home from a long day at work and your wife has drowned two of your kids - she's about to dunk the third one. Can you run over and pop her then? Unfortunately no, there's no excuse. You're going to have to let her drown that third one. — Daniel Tosh

I feel bad for the kids that are in school right now and the young people all across America who don't realize that the grownups who are supposed to be running this country are the verge of leaving them as the first generation of Americans worse off than the generation before. — Marco Rubio

Kids are doing meth in every town in the country, Cat. Dang. Get your head out of your butt. — Lauren Myracle

I agree that all kids of all colors love hip-hop. My point in writing the book was to raise questions about the ways the hip-hop generation and the millennium generation, both who have lived their entire lives in post-segregation America, are processing race in radically different ways than any generation of Americans. I think they have a lot to tell us as a country about ways of addressing race matters. — Bakari Kitwana

We're a nation with an eating disorder, and we know it. The multiple maladies caused by bad eating are taking a dire toll on our health
most tragically for our kids, who are predicted to be this country's first generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. That alone is a stunning enough fact to give us pause. So is a government policy that advises us to eat more fruits and vegetables, while doling out subsidies not to fruit and vegetable farmers, but to commodity crops destined to become soda pop and cheap burgers. The Farm Bill, as of this writing, could aptly be called the Farm Kill, both for its effects on small farmers and for what it does to us, the consumers who are financing it. — Barbara Kingsolver

I remember, the first time I came to the United States in 1996, I didn't speak a word of English at the beginning. I am very thankful for this country and the opportunity music has given me ... My three kids were born here in Miami; they speak Spanish at home, but English with all their friends. — Juanes

There was a generation of kids who were just kind of emulating distant heroes and wearing peace symbols, and parents who were thinking of themselves as liberal and removed from barbarity, but it also was the era of Vietnam. I very much was influenced - and I think the whole country was kind of in a state of shock - for the first time seeing the horror and cruelty of war. — Wes Craven

The rituals surrounding vacations among Manhattan's wealthiest and best-connected citizens are strange and specific. By vacations I don't mean country houses, which are part of the regular ebb and flow of life and which are frequently subjects for complaint - The kids never want to go! The caretaker missed the roof leak! The pipes froze! - as though having a six-thousand-square-foot, cedar-shingled cottage on five acres overlooking the ocean is nothing more or less than a constant test of character. — Anna Quindlen

Why would affluence make him mad?"
"Maybe he's mad that this is as good as it gets. Your big house. His good school. I think it's very difficult for kids these days, in a way. The country's very prosperity has become a burden, a dead end. Everything works, doesn't it? At least if you're white and middle class. So it must often seem to young people that they're not needed. In a sense, it's as if there's nothing more to do. — Lionel Shriver

When the kids see the poverty in their neighborhood, but they see these successful kids who come from the countries they come from, come from Mexico, come from Korea, come from the Philippines, come from Salvador, and were doing really well, it motivates them to do better. The former students give them a vision of what's possible. — Rafe Esquith

Statistically speaking, tracking tended to diminish learning and boost inequality wherever it was tried. In general, the younger tracking happened, the worse the entire country did on PISA. There seemed to be some kind of ghetto effect: once kids were labeled and segregated into the lower track, their learning slowed down. — Amanda Ripley

To all the kids from the "special" reading class back in high school (the one where you tried to form words using wooden blocks)
PLEASE stop telling me that I can't blame an "inanimate object" for the off-the-hook gun violence in this country. YES! ... I CAN!!! I blame all the "inanimate objects" in Congress who refuse to pass sensible gun legislation because they're too chicken-shit to take on Wayne LaPierre and the gun lobby. — Quentin R. Bufogle

Adam Brown's zest for life led him down a few dark alleys and more than one dead end. Kind-hearted and wild, Adam led a life that lacked direction. God, a woman, and the U.S. Navy gave it to him. FEARLESS is a love story ... several love stories: a man for his woman, a warrior for his team, parents for kids, and soldiers for their country. There is no greater love than that a man lay down his life for his friends. Be warned - reading FEARLESS will change the way you see the world. — Stu Weber

Coming from Morocco was just different, man. It's a third-world country, and you are trying to make it happen. That's all it is. I didn't have any problem hooking up with the black kids because I'm from North Africa. And as far as Latinos, we are all the same. — French Montana

Despite the amazing diversity we're blessed with in this country, schools are still in large part segregated because of economic disparity. Sports are one of the few areas where kids are really given the opportunity to interact with those of different races and religions. — Steve Kerr

While budgets are tight right now, there are schools across the country that are showing that it doesn't take a whole lot of money or resources to give our kids the nutrition they deserve. What it does take, however, is effort. What it does take is imagination. What it does take is a commitment to our children's futures. — Michelle Obama

If I'm president, some day, young kids will look at the world differently. They will say, I could be president some day. They couldn't have said that before I came along. The world will see the United States in a different context, as a country of true opportunity for all. — Barack Obama

We think we value mothers in America, but we don't. We may revere motherhood, the hazy abstraction, the cream-of-wheat-with-a-halo ideal, but a mother is just a kind of woman, after all, and women are trouble and not so valuable. Low-income mothers drag down the country - why'd they have kids if they couldn't support them? Middle-class mothers are boring frumps. Elite ones are obsessed sanctimommies: Don't they know how annoying they are, with their yoga, their catfights over diapers and breastfeeding, their designer strollers that take up half the sidewalk so that people with important places to go have to take several extra steps? — Katha Pollitt

The biggest obstacle facing girls is education, education, education. There are too many kids who think high school is a pit stop to fame and fortune. I want girls in this country to think education is the coolest, most important thing they could ever do in their lives. — Michelle Obama

I get letters from kids from all over the country. I always try to answer them because there were people I looked up to in my youth and just wanted to be in contact with. It's also important to realize that you find your role models in a lot of different places. I've never believed that your role models have to look like you. You can find them in all sort of colors, shapes and sizes. — Condoleezza Rice

How did high schools all over the country decide that athletes needed pep rallies to boost their pride and self-esteem? Isn't it enough that people actually pay money to see these kids compete in games? That people cheer from the sidelines? And they get their names in the paper? Why don't they take all the lonely ghost floaters in every high school and have a pep rally for them? Make all the most popular kids in school sit on the hard bleachers and cheer until their asses hurt like hell? — Matthew Quick

You think the politicians that run my country and your country don't have guns in the schools their kids go to? They do. And we should be allowed the same rights. Banning guns is like banning forks in an attempt to stop making people fat. Taking away guns, taking away drugs, the booze, it won't rid the world of criminality, — Vince Vaughn

Don't terrorize. Organize. Don't burn. Give kids a chance to learn ... The real answer to race problems in this country is education. Not burning and killing. Be ready. Be qualified. Own something. Be somebody. That's Black Power. — James Brown

While NCLB drove important progress on transparency and data disaggregation, I think it's clear that the status quo in public education is not working for our kids or our country. — Michael Bennet

It was the American middle class. No one's house cost more than two or three year's salary, and I doubt the spread in annual wages (except for the osteopath) exceeded more than five thousand dollars. And other than the doctor (who made house calls), the store managers, the minister, the salesman, and the banker, everyone belonged to a union. That meant they worked a forty-hour week, had the entire weekend off (plus two to four weeks' paid vacation in the summer), comprehensive medical benefits, and job security. In return for all that, the country became the most productive in the world and in our little neighborhood it meant your furnace was always working, your kids could be dropped off at the neighbors without notice, you could run next door anytime to borrow a half-dozen eggs, and the doors to all the homes were never locked
because who would need to steal anything if they already had all that they needed? — Michael Moore

When I get out across the country and listen to people, the resentment that I see and the frustration that I see is that we have a generation of people who are fairly convinced that their kids are not going to have a better quality of life or a better future than they will. — Justin Trudeau

Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50% of young African-American kids are unemployed, it is estimated that a black baby born today has a one in four chance of ending up in the criminal justice system. — Bernie Sanders

Liberia got Petroleum (Oil): The problem of development lies in good leadership and great communication. Some of our leaders want to turn the country's oil company into the Gaddafi regime of Libya that they could rule Liberia and their sons and grand kids can also rule as well. It's a form of oppression. The Liberian people want a leader, not an oppressor or an installed puppet. Someone who will put the country and its peoples' interest first. Not a corrupt politician who's out to rip the country apart, in the name of enriching their families. — Henry Johnson Jr

The parents of rich kids tended to be more patriotic because they had more to lose if the country went under. — Charles Bukowski

We have no target for the number of medals we hope to win in 2012 - yet. But we want every kid in the country to have the chance to have the best opportunities. — Tessa Jowell

We have to stand up for these issues when it's tough, and that's what I've done. I did it when I was in the state legislature, sponsoring the Illinois version of the DREAM Act, so that children who were brought here through no fault of their own are able to go to college, because we actually want well-educated kids in our country who are able to succeed and become part of this economy and part of the American dream. — Barack Obama

Juarez had become a failed city. The mayor of Juarez lived in El Paso. Not only did he not live in his own city, he didn't live in his own country. You had all these kids out of school who didn't want to work because they saw their mothers toiling in jobs for hardly any cash. — Beto O'Rourke

I tell kids, don't trust the media. The media with their emphasis on fame is helping to destroy this country, helping destroy the human race. It's the plug-in drug. — Pete Seeger

But I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father's kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well- read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
SO I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
-Kurt Vonnegut "A man without a country" p. 132 — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.