Massachusetts The Quotes & Sayings

Cyclists thus found their hobby not as pleasant as it could be, to say the least, and the League of American Wheelmen committed to doing something about it. A year after Fisher opened his store, the league launched a magazine, Good Roads, that became an influential mouthpiece for road improvement. Its articles were widely reprinted, which attracted members who didn't even own bikes; at the group's peak, Fisher and more than 102,000 others were on the rolls, and the Good Roads Movement was too big for politicians to ignore. Yes, the demand for roads was pedal-powered, and a national cause even before the first practical American car rolled out of a Chicopee, Massachusetts, shop in 1893. A few months ahead of the Duryea Motor Wagon's debut, Congress authorized the secretary of agriculture to "make inquiry regarding public roads" and to investigate how they might be improved. — Earl Swift

To-day Massachusetts; and the whole of the American republic, from the border of Maine to the Pacific slopes, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, stand upon the immutable and everlasting principles of equal and exact justice. The days of unrequited labor are numbered with the past. Fugitive slave laws are only remembered as relics of that barbarism which John Wesley pronounced "the sum of all villainies," and whose knowledge of its blighting effects was matured by his travels in Georgia and the Carolinas. — Horace Mann

I was 14 years old in August of 1968 and had earned the money and had managed to get tickets as a guest of the Massachusetts delegation to the Republican convention in Miami and where I was on the floor in the Rockefeller demonstrations. — Richard Norton Smith

PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience. — Ambrose Bierce

I went to Massachusetts to make a difference. I didn't go there to begin a political career running time and time again. I made a difference. I put in place the things I wanted to do. — Mitt Romney

My mother was independent. She had grown up in Dalton and Pittsfield, in western Massachusetts, and she was one of the first women drivers in that area. — Julia Child

All through the crowd were men in uniform, sailors from the great fleet anchored in the Hudson, soldiers with divisional insignia from Massachusetts to California, wanting fearfully to be noticed, and finding the great city thoroughly fed up with soldiers unless they were nicely massed into pretty formations and uncomfortable under the weight of a pack and rifle. Through this medley Dean and Gordon wandered; the former interested, made alert by the display of humanity at its frothiest and gaudiest; the latter reminded of how often he had been one of the crown, tired, casually fed, overworked, and dissipated. To Dean the struggle was significant, young, cheerful; to Gordon it was dismal, meaningless, endless. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Millennials in the workplace have been called "orchids"2 (can't survive outside the greenhouse) and "teacups"3 (chip easily and then are ruined), but to me the most prescient metaphor for young adults sent out into the world after being overparented is "veal" - a term coined by Massachusetts educator Joe Maruszczak - meaning they're raised in controlled environments and led, metaphorically, to slaughter. None of us took a course called "how to hold your kid back," but overparenting appears to be seriously poor preparation for life in the work world. In 2014, interested — Julie Lythcott-Haims

The notion of a country cottage settled in her thoughts as a watercolor, red bricks, climbing roses, the house the most intelligent of the three little pigs built, but with some age on it now; and the place they found in western Massachusetts wasn't far off, solid enough to withstand huffs and puffs, small enough to feel manageable, large enough to hold visiting grandchildren, old enough to inspire optimism about what might, improbably, endure. — Robin Black

from Canada, between 1840 and 1930 over 900,000 Quebecois traveled to the United States, and primarily to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. — Patrice DeMers Kaneda

The irony is that we've seen this model work really well in Massachusetts because Gov. Romney did a good thing, working with Democrats in the state to set up what is essentially the identical model and, as a consequence, people are covered there. It hasn't destroyed jobs. And as a consequence, we now have a system in which we have the opportunity to start bringing down costs as opposed to just leaving millions of people out in the cold." "Gov. Romney said this has to be done on a bipartisan basis — Barack Obama

Sometimes a soldier returns home and all he can do is share his story in the hopes that somehow, in some way, it helps another soldier make sense of things. And although the stories may not be perfect, sometimes just sharing is enough to make a difference. — Michael Anthony

In the '80s and '90s, I was really interested in, moved by, exhilarated by, and troubled by rap in all the ways a white person from Brookline, Massachusetts should be. That was music that was making trouble, and it was interesting and provocative trouble. — John Hodgman

The most important American love poet in living memory, and certainly one of the most important American poets tout court, Robert Creeley was born in 1926 and raised in eastern Massachusetts. — Susan Stewart

Holly is the bestselling author and co-creator of The Spiderwick Chronicles series and won a Newbery Honor for her novel Doll Bones. Cassie is the author of bestselling YA series, including The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices. They both live in Western Massachusetts, about ten minutes away from each other. — Holly Black

Roadrunner, roadrunner, going faster miles an hour. Gonna drive past the Stop 'n' Shop, with the radio on. I'm in love with Massachusetts and the neon when it's cold outside. And the highway when it's late at night. Got the radio on, I'm like the roadrunner. — Jonathan Richman

Romney is a classic case of re-invention. As governor of Massachusetts, he supported government-sponsored healthcare, was sympathetic to gay rights, and opposed harsh restrictions on abortion. After measuring the difference between the Massachusetts electorate and the national one to which he must now appeal, he has reversed those positions. — Stephen Kinzer

Otis, on the other hand, didn't miss home a bit. He had always hated the stairs in our house in Massachusetts. He was now five years old and very large for a golden retriever. I thought he was fat, but Bruce insisted he was just "big-boned". Either way, climbing the steep stairs at home was a challenge. Whenever Bruce and I went upstairs, Otis would sit near the bottom step, carefully calculating whether we would be on the second floor long enough to make it worthwhile to heave himself up the stairs. And on the way down the stairs, Otis was like a fully loaded eighteen-wheeler barreling down a steep hill. We just got out of his way.
But in the new Washington apartment building, Otis had an elevator. As far as he was concerned, life was sweet. — Elizabeth Warren

Marathon Day in Boston and all of Massachusetts, it's Patriot's Day, and it's a big celebration for us. It's a day when we're kind of the whole world's city there. — Elizabeth Warren

Pennsylvania, the state that has produced two great men: Benjamin Franklin of Massachusetts, and Albert Gallatin of Switzerland. — John James Ingalls

Dr. Margaret Naeser and colleagues from Harvard, MIT, and Boston University, including Harvard professor Michael Hamblin, a world leader in understanding how light therapy works at the cellular level. Hamblin, at Massachusetts General Hospital's Wellman Center for Photomedicine, specializes in the use of light to activate the immune system in treating cancer and cardiac disease; he was now branching out into its use for brain injuries. Building on lab work that applied laser therapy to the top of the head (transcranial laser therapy), the Boston group had studied its use in traumatic brain injury and found laser treatment helpful. Naeser, a research professor at the Boston University School of Medicine, had done studies using lasers for stroke and paralysis and was one of several pioneers using "laser acupuncture" by placing light on acupuncture points. — Norman Doidge

Whether it was his ability to turn around the Massachusetts economy or turn around businesses in the private sector, Mitt Romney has demonstrated the leadership that we need in the White House to get the country on the right track. — Lisa Murkowski

Poor dull Concord. Nothing colorful has come through here since the Redcoats. — Louisa May Alcott

Mitt Romney talks a lot about all the things he's fixed. I can tell you that Massachusetts wasn't one of them. He's a fine fellow and a great salesman, but as governor he was more interested in having the job than doing it. — Deval Patrick

Sparhawk's reputation must have preceded him. The Massachusetts coast, as he was often reminded, was shaped like an ear. It heard everything. — Donna Thorland

What we want is not mainly to colonize Nebraska with free men, but to colonize Massachusetts with free men-to be free ourselves. As the enterprise of a few individuals, that is brave and practical; but as the enterprise of the State, it is cowardice and imbecility. What odds where we squat, or bow much ground we cover? It is not the soil that we would make free, but men. — Henry David Thoreau

In the little town where I live in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, we now have a 'Public Safety Complex' around the corner from what used to be our hokey Andy Griffith-esque fire station. — Rachel Maddow

A humble, bootstrappy patriot, Knox wooed, then married Lucy Flucker, the highbrow daughter of the Loyalist governor of the province of Massachusetts. — Sarah Vowell

My father was in the coal business in West Virginia. Both dad and mother were, however, originally from Massachusetts; New England, to them, meant the place to go if you really wanted an education. — John Knowles

I think it's unconscionable for a Senator from Massachusetts to come down here and tell the people of Florida what's right for them. It's arrogant and irresponsible. — Jeff Miller

Washington was concerned that the soldiers coming to him from Massachusetts were too few and of too low quality. He was disappointed that the majority of the Massachusetts volunteers appeared to be thrill-seeking teenagers, British Army deserters and otherwise unemployed African Americans. Washington doubted that these volunteers would ever be able to stand up to the British. Much to Washington's surprise, the free black men soon proved to be exemplary soldiers. — C.L. Gammon

It is the night-black Massachusetts legendry which packs the really macabre "kick". Here is material for a really profound study in group-neuroticism; for certainly, no one can deny the existence of a profoundly morbid streak in the Puritan imagination. — H.P. Lovecraft

Country jakes are always whining about the sanctity of states' rights and individual freedoms. Yet when a couple of queers want to get married in Massachusetts, half the South goes apeshit with homemade posters and fire-breathing sermons. And when a few million concerned residents of states thousands of miles away decide they want to stop destroying their landscape in the name of corporate mammon and consumer stupidity, the South sends out its greasy merchants of avarice to cajole, bribe, hector, lie, intimidate, and "lobby" until the seed of their plantation mentality is protected and their gluttonous mouths are once again filled with the jizz of the master caste before whom they kneel like Bourbon Street whores on Navy payday. — Chuck Thompson

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
Dear Madam,
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln — Abraham Lincoln

In 2012, President Barack Obama ran for re-election against Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, who didn't have any eumelanin in the basale stratum of his epidermis. It was the usual bargain for J. Karacehennem and other people of the Loony Left. You supported a person whose policies you agreed with, sort of, but who you felt was too beholden to corporate interests and whose foreign policy made you sick. If you didn't support this person, the alternative was something even worse. Voting was little more than triage. — Jarett Kobek

I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the unconcerned world would start with real horror. — Dorothea Dix

I spent the better part of my developing years in Massachusetts. — Betsy Beers

Moving is easy, exciting, an adventure - when you're young. Later, not so much. I love Massachusetts, my old home. Sometimes, late at night, I even study the real estate ads in my old hometown. But it's not even a fantasy. My parents are both gone. The world I left doesn't exist anymore. Neither does the person I was. — Susan Estrich

I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston and Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. — Daniel Webster

Massachusetts has no idea what's coming for them. I bet you'll be the first Mae West they've ever had. — Ruta Sepetys

My parents came from Russia and suddenly they wound up in Boston, Massachusetts, Brookline, Massachusetts and they felt the sun rose and set on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's backside because he meant so much to them. This was freedom. This was something totally different from the Russia they had left. — Mike Wallace

The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen states in the course of eleven years, is but one for each state in a century and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent insurrections. — Thomas Jefferson

I won the youth vote in Massachusetts and in California. I did very well with it in Ohio. — Hillary Clinton

Dolphins, I learned from J. Worden of the Harvard Child Bereavement Study at Massachusetts General Hospital, had been observed refusing to eat after the death of a mate. Geese had been observed reacting to such a death by flying and calling, searching until they themselves became disoriented and lost. — Joan Didion

We always spend the summer together. My wife and kids, we always go back to Massachusetts and spend the summer there near where my wife and I both grew up. I wasn't willing to sacrifice the summer to go elsewhere. — Steve Carell

In 1948 I entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, undecided between studies of chemistry and physics, but my first year convinced me that physics was more interesting to me. — Burton Richter

With the presidential debates right around the corner, John Kerry is going to play Mitt Romney to help the President prepare for the debates. That's kind of a stretch; a rich white guy from Massachusetts playing a rich white guy from Massachusetts. — Jay Leno

I grew up in a town called Hopedale, Massachusetts. I was born there in 1964, and the only thing I hate outside of myself is everything else. — Dana Gould

The following "Rules for Female Teachers" were posted by the school board of one town in Massachusetts: Do not get married. Do not leave town at any time without permission of the school board. Do not keep company with men. Be home between the hours of 8 P.M. and 6 A.M. Do not loiter downtown in ice cream stores. Do not smoke. Do not get into a carriage with any man except your father or brother. Do not dress in bright colors. Do not dye your hair. Do not wear any dress more than two inches above the ankle. — Howard Zinn

Courage
judgment
integrity
dedication
these are the historic qualities of the Bay Colony and the Bay State ... And these are the qualities which, with God's help, this son of Massachusetts hopes will characterize our government's conduct in the four stormy years that lie ahead. — John F. Kennedy

New Jersey boasts the highest percentage of passport holders (68%); Delaware (67%), Alaska (65%), Massachusetts (63%), New York (62%), and California (60%) are close behind. At the opposite end of the spectrum, less than one in five residents of Mississippi are passport holders, and just one in four residents of West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, and Arkansas. — Richard Florida

The American woods have been unnerving people for 300 years. The inestimably priggish and tiresome Henry David Thoreau thought nature was splendid, splendid indeed, so long as he could stroll to town for cakes and barley wine, but when he experienced real wilderness, on a vist to Katahdin in 1846, he was unnerved to the cored. This wasn't the tame world of overgrown orchards and sun-dappled paths that passed for wilderness in suburban Concord, Massachusetts, but a forbiggind, oppressive, primeval country that was "grim and wild ... savage and dreary," fit only for "men nearer of kin to the rocks and wild animals than we." The experience left him, in the words of one biographer, "near hysterical. — Bill Bryson

Two [Massachusetts coal burning power plants] remain: Brayton Point in the South Coast region and Mt. Tom, just down the road. Within the next four years, both should shut down and Massachusetts should finally end all reliance on conventional coal generation. — Deval Patrick

I've always adored my father's music, but ever since I'd started singing, whether it was while I was still a student at the University of Massachusetts or professionally, I avoided Dad's material. — Natalie Cole

Without really analyzing it, I grew up in Massachusetts, so the Salem witch trials were always something that I was around. The average kindergartner probably doesn't know about it, except that in Massachusetts, you do, because they'll take you on field trips to see reenactments and stuff. — Rob Zombie

Whether it was turning around failing companies, rescuing the Olympics, or improving the business climate in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney has proven that he is ready to be president on Day One. — Timothy Griffin

I'm with an old family was the euphemism used to dignify the professions of white folks' cooks and maids who talked so affectedly among their own kind in Roxbury [Massachusetts] that you couldn't even understand them. — Malcolm X

Let me announce this to the American people tonight one of the best things about this debate, as a Democrat from Massachusetts, I have proposed eliminating, getting rid of the alternative minimum tax. — Richard Neal

From tea parties to the election in Massachusetts, we are witnessing the single greatest political pushback in American history. — Marco Rubio

My understanding is that Kansas, Massachusetts, they've been more pioneers on the special education side. — Margaret Spellings

I thought I would be governor of Massachusetts. I stood on a pile of my old albums and said, 'I'm the only one with a record to stand on.' — Arlo Guthrie

No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case. — Henry David Thoreau

In 1887, Oregon became the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday, with Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York quickly following suit. — Brendan I. Koerner

My daughter just graduated college and she's a dance major. She's done a couple of dance videos already and won Miss Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago. She's going out for Miss United States the second week of July, out in Las Vegas. She will probably wind up going to New York and trying the Broadway thing. — Doug Flutie

There are now reports that President Obama will name Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to be the next secretary of defense. Apparently this is part of America's new defense strategy to bore our enemies to death. — Jay Leno

Mr. President, I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. I speak for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause. — Daniel Webster

At least when I get on the Boston train I have a good chance of landing in the South Station
And not in that part of the daily press which is reserved for victims of aviation. — Ogden Nash

Two years ago, George Bush felt prompted to address this issue. More spending on public education, said the president, isn't "the best answer." Mr. Bush went on to caution parents of poor children who see money "as a cure" for education problems. "A society that worships money ... ," said the president, "is a society in peril." The president himself attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts - a school that spends $11,000 yearly on each pupil, not including costs of room and board. If money is a wise investment for the education of a future president at Andover, it is no less so for the child of poor people in Detroit. But the climate of the times does not encourage this belief, and the president's words will surely reinforce that climate. — Jonathan Kozol

In the very next election, the American people elected 63 new Republicans to the House of Representatives - the largest sweep of Congress for any party since 1948. Even liberal Massachusetts elected a Republican senator solely because of his vow to vote against Obamacare. — Ann Coulter

I'm from a little island off of Massachusetts, Nantucket. It's hard getting into the music business from there, but my parents took me to songwriting festivals because I would write and produce my own music. — Meghan Trainor

I'm lucky to have been raised in the most beautiful place - Amherst, Massachusetts, state of my heart. I'm more patriotic to Massachusetts than to almost any place. — Uma Thurman

Hello and welcome to this collection of calls put together specifically to embarrass the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now you'll hear us tackle the very pillars of science: physics, chemistry, fluid dynamics and, of course, cream rinse. — Tom Magliozzi

My real name is Joe Kennedy, but if you live in Massachusetts, you can't sign 'Joe Kennedy.' So, back in 1957, I stuck the X on my name to be different from those people in Hyannis Port. — X.J. Kennedy

When I was little, I didn't smile much. Don't get me wrong. I was a happy kid, but I couldn't stand the space, dead center, in between my teeth. Yeah, I could whistle through it, but so what? That didn't win me many points on the playground in Medfield, Massachusetts. — Uzo Aduba

In Connecticut, for example, a man confessed to having had sexual relations with a variety of animals since the age of ten; Massachusetts executed several teenage boys for buggery. Sexual relations with animals required harsh punishment, for colonists believed that these unions could have reproductive consequences. The mating of humans and animals, they feared, would produce monstrous offspring. For this reason, colonists insisted on punishing not only the man but also the beast, who might bear such monsters. — John D'Emilio

There are winter evenings in Massachusetts when there is no wind and the crust on the snow seems to hold in the cold. And if the moon is three-quarters full, its light adds a kind of warmth to the surrounding earth. — Kathleen Kent

The Senator from Massachusetts has given us ample grounds to doubt the judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national security. — Dick Cheney

During the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Eastern Massachusetts, mid-nineteenth century, there happened to be a very lively press run by working people, young women in the factories, artisans in the mills, and so on. They had their own press that was very interesting, very widely read and had a lot of support. And they bitterly condemned the way the industrial system was taking away their freedom and liberty and imposing on them rigid hierarchical structures that they didn't want. One of their main complaints was what they called "the new spirit of the age: gain wealth forgetting all but self." For 150 years there have been massive efforts to try to impose "the new spirit of the age" on people. But it's so inhuman that there's a lot of resistance, and it continues. — Noam Chomsky

Our governor in Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, once told a story about his grandma. She said, "Don't call people 'the poor.' Call people broke. Broke is temporary." I try not to say "the poor" because it sounds like a sentence, like I'm putting people in a box, far away from those of us who can make ends meet. But someone who is broke, on the other hand, is a peer. — Molly Phinney Baskette

We've sued out-of-state power plants that are polluting our air and led a coalition of attorneys general from Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Massachusetts against efforts in the U.S. House of Representatives to remove critical environmental regulations that protect New York communities from toxic pollution. — Eric Schneiderman

Massachusetts is seeing a surge in the number of unvaccinated children. Last year nearly 1,200 kids entered kindergarten with religious or philosophical vaccine exemptions, roughly double the total about a decade ago. — Deborah Blum

I'm a big believer in getting money from where the money is, and the money is in Washington. I learned from running the Olympics that you can get money there to help build economic opportunities. We actually got over $410 million from the federal government; that is a huge increase over anything ever done before. We did that by going after every agency of government. That kind of creativity I want to bring to everything we do (in Massachusetts). — Mitt Romney

You won't let anything bad happen to me, will you, Garrett?"
A lump the size of Massachusetts lodges in my throat. I swallow hard and try to speak past it.
"Never. — Elle Kennedy

I do remember with great pleasure, if not terribly clearly, a play by Richard Foreman with music by Stanley Silverman called Hotel For Criminals, which I saw in a sinisterly suitable mansion in the cultured wilds of western Massachusetts in the summer of 1974, and which could be described as based loosely on Fantomas. — Edward Gorey

The important point of this report [Montague, Massachusetts; July 7, 1774] may be summed up in six resolutions: 1. We approve of the plan for a Continental Congress September 1, at Philadelphia. 2. We urge the disuse of India teas and British goods. 3. We will act for the suppression of pedlers and petty chapmen (supposably vendors of dutiable wares). 4. And work to promote American manufacturing. 5. We ought to relieve Boston. 6. We appoint the 14th day of July, a day of humiliation and prayer. — Edward Pearson Pressey

In 1981, after ten years in Basel, I returned to the United States to continue my research on the immune system at the Center for Cancer Research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where Director Salvador E. Luria provided me with an excellent laboratory. — Susumu Tonegawa

We are Sinclairs. Beautiful. Privileged. Damaged. Liar. We live, least in the summertime, on a private island off the coast of Massachusetts. Perhaps that is all you need to know. — E. Lockhart

By the way, if I have my own cult of personality with my own geodetic dome in western Massachusetts, I will have a hurt yurt for anyone who crosses me. — John Hodgman

in their supposed innocence of and opposition to empire, have become the mythic progenitors of the United States - almost as improbably as Solomon was of Ethiopia or Aeneas of Rome or his suppositious brother, Brut, of Britain. But almost everything most Americans think about the Plymouth colonists of 1620 is false. The truth is more credible. The first colonists in Massachusetts, exchanging accusations of "bestial, yea, diabolical affectations," were as divided and conflicted as people usually are when fate flings them together. Their leaders did not seek — Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Regardless of how liberal Massachusetts may seem, the Celtics were totally GOP. Like Thomas Jefferson, K. C. Jones did not believe in a strong central government: The Celtic players mostly coached themselves. They practiced when they felt like practicing and pulled themselves out of games when they deemed it appropriate, and they wanted to avoid anything taxing. They wanted to avoid taxes. And they excelled by attacking the world in the same way they had been raised to understand it: You pick-and-roll, you throw the bounce pass, you make your free throws. If it worked in the 1950s, it can work now. — Chuck Klosterman

Toward the end of school I started watching movies. Got a job in a movie theater in Brookline, Massachusetts. — Jim McKay

I love Massachusetts for a number of reasons. I once loved a magical girl who lived in a magnificently converted barn, a half-hour or so from Boston. I love your winters. I love the snow. — J. D. Souther

A great physicist taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He published many important books and papers. Often he had an idea in the middle of the night. He rose from his bed, took a shower, washed his hair, and shaved. He dressed completely, in a clean shirt, in polished shoes, a jacket and tie. Then he sat at his desk and wrote down his idea. A friend of mine asked him why he put himself through all that rigmarole. 'Why,' he said, surprised at the question, 'in honor of physics! — Annie Dillard

Chet Raymo is professor of physics and astronomy at Stonehill College in Massachusetts. He is a convinced naturalist with a strong mystical bent. Few writers in our time are able to open up vistas of grandeur in the world of objects and entities as he does. In his book Skeptics and True Believers:The Exhilarating Connection between Science and Religion, he illustrates in his brilliant and inimitable style the marvels that are all around us in this universe. — Ravi Zacharias

One night last summer, all the killers in my head assembled on a stage in Massachusetts to sing show tunes. — Sarah Vowell

Some of the bank people were so young they'd never seen a business proposal suggesting manufacturing things in the state of Massachusetts. They thought they'd unearthed some ancient shaman, full of clues to a forgotten world. — Dave Eggers

The Pilgrims landed the Mayflower at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on a cold November day in 1620 because they were running out of beer. — Susan Cheever

One person can make a difference. A huge difference. Consider what a solitary individual may accomplish: In 1645 one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of England. In 1649 one vote cost Charles I of England his life, causing him to be executed. In 1776 one vote gave America the English language instead of the German language. In 1839 one vote elected Mark Morgan governor of Massachusetts. In 1845 one vote brought Texas into the Union. In 1868 one vote saved President Johnson from impeachment. In 1875 one vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic. In 1876 one vote gave Rutherford B. Hayes the United States presidency. In 1923 one vote gave Adolf Hitler control of the Nazi party. In 1941 one vote saved the Selective Service Agency just — David Jeremiah

The reason Gov. Romney passed Romneycare as governor of Massachusetts in 2006 was because many Republicans viewed health care reform, mandates and all, as a way to inoculate against Democratic charges that Republicans didn't care about people who lacked health insurance. — Ari Fleischer

I will work my heart out to earn the trust of the people of Massachusetts. — Elizabeth Warren