I sought my father in the world of the black musician because it contained wisdom experience sadness and loneliness. I was not ever interested in the music of boys. From my youngest years I was interested in the music of men.

Masterpieces are not single and solitary births they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common of thinking by the body of the people so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings.

We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life and often find ourselves without experience despite our years.

Mistakes are painful when they happen but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience.

The years teach much which the days never know.

The March on Washington affirmed our values as a people: equality and opportunity for all. Forty-one years ago during a time of segregation these were an ideal.

The mandate I have received and for which I will speak with heart and head to implement over the next seven years had its four pillars - an inclusive citizenship equality and participation and respect in a creative society creating an excellence in everything we Irish do.

America 5 years after this brutal attack is testament that a Nation conceived in liberty and equality will endure. It is a triumph of millions of Americans but it is also the triumph of an idea larger than any one person larger than any one nation.

For 25 years it has been my privilege to represent the city of San Francisco and the great state of California to work to strengthen our vibrant middle class to secure opportunity and equality.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Since the day he came into office President Bush has worked to gut more than 34 years of hard work by weakening many of our Nation's standing environmental laws some of which were signed into law by his father.

Loads of chemicals and hazardous wastes have been introduced into the atmosphere that didn't even exist in 1948. The environmental condition of the planet is far worse than it was 42 years ago.

Of the 55 refineries closed in America in the last 10 years they were all closed for economic reasons mostly oil company mergers. Not a single one was closed for environmental purposes or objections.

Despite Arizona's remarkable growth in recent years we have met the current federal health standards for ozone pollution and the Environmental Protection Agency recently approved our dust control plan.

I reflect back 35 years ago and look how far we have come in America with our environmental policy to improve the conditions of our air and water and we have had some real successes.

The main environmental challenge of the 21st century is poverty. When you don't know where your next meal is coming from it's hard to consider the environment 100 years down the line.

Federal elections happen every two years in this country. Presidential elections every four years. And four years just isn't long enough to dismantle all the environmental laws we've got in this country.

I decided that now is the time to start doing the things that really interest me and I find important. It was in the 10 years of the MacArthur grant that I began working on my first book... and I began putting more work into environmental history.

I don't think it's too hippie to want to clean up the planet so you don't wind up dying of some kind of cancer when you're 45 years old. It enrages me that these big cancer-research organizations can't be bothered to man the front lines of environmental protest.

I'm a latecomer to the environmental issue which for years seemed to me like an excuse for more government regulation. But I can see that in rich societies voters are paying less attention to economic issues and more to issues of the spirit including the environment.

All we can hope for is that the thing is going to slowly and imperceptibly shift. All I can say is that 50 years ago there were no such thing as environmental policies.

Within 10 years it will be impossible to travel to the North Pole by dog team. There will be too much open water.

Liberals in Congress have spent the past three decades pandering to environmental extremists. The policies they have put in place are in large part responsible for the energy crunch we are seeing today. We have not built a refinery in this country for 30 years.