Quotes from Bruce Watson

Relentless criticism in childhood can internalize a parental scorn that no amount of success will silence.

The volunteers merely dropped in for a summer, then went home to question America. Some would spearhead the events that defined the 1960s—the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, the antiwar movement, the women's movement. Others, spreading ideals absorbed in Mississippi, would be forever skeptical of authority, forever democrats with a small d, and forever touched by this single season of their youth. But first, they had to survive Freedom Summer.

It has been said that life is a tragedy to those who think and a comedy to those who feel.

nothing trite in SNCC's founding statement: "Through nonviolence, courage displaces fear; love transforms hate. Acceptance dissipates prejudice, hope ends despair. Peace dominates war, faith reconciles doubt.

Presently we began to have our slices of the national cake," F. Scott Fitzgerald remembered, "and our idealism only flared up when the newspapers made melodrama out of such stories as Harding and the Ohio Gang or Sacco and Vanzetti.

She taught me to be grateful for my life regardless of what that entailed, and that's directly related to the image of Christ on the cross and the example of sacrifice that he gave us." But the Stephen Colbert who speaks

Light is the magician of the cosmos.

Light takes darkness vanish and worlds reappear. Light opens each day with a blaring overture, then throws its wands to earth and casts diamonds on lakes and oceans. Each night, lights tricks make the stars seem alive.

We have entered the Age of Light. The ages of steam and coal are long gone. With oil clinging to power, light is emerging as our deus ex machine. Light goes where nothing else can, gets there faster than anything else could, and brings back the images. If there are limits to light, other than its cosmic speed limit, we have not tested them. If there is a final answer to the question "What is light?" we have not found it.

American students have finally come around to support something that must be done.

Knock knock!" "Who's there?" the crowd responded. "Unlimited union and corporate campaign contributions." "Unlimited union and corporate campaign contributions who?" "That's the thing," Colbert said. "I don't think I should have to tell you.

A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation. —Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations1

love transforms hate. Acceptance dissipates prejudice, hope ends despair. Peace dominates war, faith reconciles doubt.

all clung to the hope that whenever America fell short of its ideals, young Americans could restore them.

Stephen Colbert still mourns. "Grief," he said, "will always accept the invitation to appear. It's got plenty of time for you.

But the bullet that killed Herbert Lee set off a string of firecrackers that clustered in a single summer, a season so radically different, so idealistic, so savage, so daring, that it redefined freedom in America.