Quotes About Service

The fuss of being president, the pomp, the press, the physical constraints—all that I could have done without. The actual work, though? The work, I loved. Even when it didn't love me back.

In this new, curiously sealed habitat of mine, the fondness and trust I felt toward those I worked with and the kindness and support they showed me and my family were a saving grace. This was true for Ray Rogers and Quincy Jackson, the two young navy valets assigned to the Oval Office, who served refreshments to visitors and whipped up a solid lunch for me every day in the tiny kitchenette wedged next to the dining space.

Marvin had held a variety of jobs, from golf caddy to bartender at a strip club, before landing work as John Kerry's body man four years earlier. It's a strange role, the body man: a personal assistant and jack-of-all-trades responsible for making sure that the candidate has everything he or she needs to function, whether a favorite snack or a couple of Advil, an umbrella when it's wet or a scarf when it's cold

proof of people's capacity to harness ingenuity in the service of madness.

I had to ask strangers to join me and one another on real-life projects - fixing up a park, or removing asbestos from a housing project, or starting and after-school program.

The fuss of being president, the pomp, the press, the physical constraints - all that I could have done without. The actual work, though? The work, I loved. Even when it didn't love me back.

THE QUEST FOR some form of universal healthcare in the United States dates back to 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt, who had previously served nearly eight years as a Republican president, decided to run again—this time on a progressive ticket and with a platform that called for the establishment of a centralized national health service. At

Believe in something larger than yourself.

Some people give time, some money, some their skills and connections, some literally give their life's blood. But everyone has something to give.

called from Hawaii to say he was on his way home, waiting for a military flight. On Christmas

Your own Self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world.

Sometimes Carlie hands me the squirt bottle of Bam (an acronym for something that begins, ominously, with butyric - the rest of it has been worn off the label) and lets me do the bathrooms. No service ethic challenges me here to new heights of performance. I just concentrate on removing the pubic hairs from the bathtubs, or at least the dark ones that I can see.

Do the owners have any idea of the misery that goes into rendering their homes motel-perfect? Would they be bothered if they did know, or would they take a sadistic pride in what they have purchased --boasting to dinner guests, for example, that their floors are cleaned only with the purest of fresh human tears?...I have never employed a cleaning person or service...because this is just not the kind of relationship I want to have with another human being.

I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.

All God's children have to take a shit, but you'd never know it from the way they treat the ones who have to clean it up.

We cater to the better class of gentile clientele. We reserve the right to decline service to anyone we deem to be incompatible.

She never says gracias because life is made of survival not grace, she says, and servants are paid to bring what they're asked.

Ms. Annie said all God's children have to take a shit, but you'd never know it from the way they treat the ones that clean it up.

Willa's lifelong service to the duty of proper order now seemed like an idiot's game.

For cafeteria workers far and wide. We love you guys!

Emma moved around the circular table quietly, gathering the used silver and the plates with as little fuss and noise as possible. This was protection in itself, for she believed the less people noticed your existence, the easier it was to get along without trouble.

The essence of samurai is not just service, but loyalty to his master, to a cause greater than himself.

Tatsu was true samurai, and would continue serving the same master no matter how many times that master ignored or even abused him. Devoted service was the highest end he knew. It

We had each spent two years with what Uncle Sam at the time affectionately referred to as the Muj, more recently regarded with less warmth as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and I hadn't seen him, or missed him, since then.