Tag Archives: Memoir

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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

I’m good-naturedly shaking my fist at the person who came up with these prompts!

How on earth are we supposed to pick only one quote? Can’t I pick twenty instead?

(Yes, I’m being a little silly there. It was hard to narrow it down, though!)

The imagery in the quote below makes me smile.

Individually, our efforts to change the world might not look like much, but they can add up to more than the sum of their parts if we work together and do what we can.

“Each person held aloft a single lit candle—the city’s traditional way to express its appreciation for that year’s peace prize winner. It was a magical sight, as if a pool of stars had descended from the sky; and as Michelle and I leaned out to wave, the night air brisk on our cheeks, the crowd cheering wildly, I couldn’t help but think about the daily fighting that continued to consume Iraq and Afghanistan and all the cruelty and suffering and injustice that my administration had barely even begun to deal with. The idea that I, or any one person, could bring order to such chaos seemed laughable; on some level, the crowds below were cheering an illusion. And yet, in the flickering of those candles, I saw something else. I saw an expression of the spirit of millions of people around the world: the U.S. soldier manning a post in Kandahar, the mother in Iran teaching her daughter to read, the Russian pro-democracy activist mustering his courage for an upcoming demonstration—all those who refused to give up on the idea that life could be better, and that whatever the risks and hardships, they had a role to play.

Whatever you do won’t be enough, I heard their voices say.

Try anyway.”

― President Barack Obama, A Promised Land 

If you haven’t already read the memoirs that President and Mrs. Obama have written, I recommend picking them up. They are both excellent storytellers.