You know, everybody has a slogan, and once you beat people over the head with it so much, then that's what you'll eventually be called once you retire from the sport or whatever.
People do not retire. They are retired by others.
On the campaign trail, I have the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life - from residents at a battered women's shelter to mentally handicap children to retirees - and learn about their lives and struggles.
Well, today people have to be self-reliant if they want a secure retirement income.
As we get closer to the end of this Congress, we should be addressing the urgent needs of the American people - the war in Iraq, affordable health care, a sensible energy policy, quality education for our children, retirement security, and a sound and fair fiscal policy.
I don't know why people thought I was retiring.
People think retiring is fun. Well, maybe, but if you have a certain kind of fire inside, there is no end in sight.
People say the most stupid things on the spur of the moment that they then have to retract.
It's wrong to become a bully yourself or to take it out on other people, and in my case, I just retreated to a place where I was safe. And that place was my imagination, books, and television.
The problem is that during the 1980s, a decade of heavy poaching, the elephants retreated to safer areas. And now people have moved into the corridors once used by the elephants.
People are really surprised by the fact that I keep in touch with the latest trends rather than retreating to the distant past.
I've been saying it at all our Senate Democratic retreats we need to speak to the heart, not in a manipulative way, not in a way that brings forth everybody's fears and resentments, but truly to speak to the heart so that people know that we're actually on their side.
That's what fascinates me about these writers' retreats: You're in these small spaces with small groups of people, and all of the sudden, the spotlight is shining on you harder than it normally is.
When you put something out there into the world, there's all these words you don't want to hear, that you hope people don't say. I don't like anything that starts with 're' - like retro, reinvent, recreate - I hate that. It's always like living in the past - copying, emulating.
The only people available to change the world are the people now living in it, with all the beliefs they bring along - however retrograde those beliefs may appear to those of us who see ourselves as enlightened.
In retrospect, I can see I couldn't talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!
People say I am stuck in childhood, but it's not that. I remember seeing a Matisse retrospective, and you could see he started out one way, and then he tried something different, and then he seemed to spend his whole life trying to get back to the first thing.
The people in 'July, July' do find themselves looking backward, talking to others and to themselves about those over-the-cliff, fork-in-the-road moments in their lives. I imagine this is what must happen at a 30th college reunion.
It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.
When you get together with childhood friends, for example, there's an intimacy that you instantly have because you share something really profound in your past. There's a shortcut to emotional intimacy if you share your past with somebody. It's really empowering when you're reunited with people who share that.
