Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.

All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.

As I visited the various neighborhoods in the campaign I learned fast that it's a mistake to think that all of the wisdom and possible solutions to our problems are available only in this building.

It is astonishing what force purity and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.

With success came an ever-growing burden of responsibility. I lived with a near-constant low-level anxiety that I would make a mistake that would not only threaten my career but also my brothers' - not to mention the livelihoods of many people who work with us or for us.

Chicago's neighborhoods have always been this city's greatest strength.

Traditional Albanian society was based on a clan system and was further divided into brotherhoods and bajraks. The bajrak system identified a local leader called a bajrakar who could be counted on to provide a certain number of men for military duty.

When you look at where the real problems are among minorities in our society particularly blacks it's at the bottom. It's the people who are in school systems that don't educate neighborhoods where there is a lot of crime drugs the whole bit.

We have to understand how the extremists got the way they are. Without that kind of understanding we'd never really get to know them. I put in nothing about their childhoods. But what I have put in is stuff about the weird symbiotic relationship between us and them.

It's a great mistake I think to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things.

Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges to any hope New Yorkers might retain that even semblances of fairness still prevail.

St. Louis has a lot of weird food customs that you don't see other places - and a lot of great ethnic neighborhoods. There's a German neighborhood. A great old school Italian neighborhood with toasted ravioli which seems to be a St. Louis tradition. And they love provolone cheese in St. Louis.

The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces but which all experience refutes.

Violence is a problem we all want to solve. I want to make sure that kids learn to deal with anger by learning how to talk with people to solve problems. Here in the United States Senate I want to make sure we have safe schools safe neighborhoods and good things for kids to do after school!

One thing that is almost always said to me is I grew up with you. They are meeting me and feel that they actually grew up with me. I was with them during their play hours and thinking hours. I was a part of their childhoods. That's one of the most amazing things.