You have friends, and they die. You have a disease, someone you care about has a disease, Wall Street people are scamming everyone, the poor get poorer, the rich get richer. That's what we're surrounded by all the time.
The power of protest depends not only on how many turn out, but also on what legislative, judicial, and civil society institutions exist to enact the will of those marching in the streets.
Still, the change is nearly indescribable - going from total obscurity to walking down a street in New York and having everybody turn and look; to feel the temperature of a room change when I walked in.
If you walk down the street and see someone in a box, you have a choice. That person is either the other and you're fearful of them, or that person is an extension of your family. And that makes you at home in that world and not fearful. So really it...
I think people can learn from my experience - you know, any young people who are under pressure, whether you work on Wall Street or you work in a factory in Alabama, and young journalists.
Whether it is Obamacare, the stimulus, Wall Street bailouts, the food safety bill - on vote after vote, Bill Nelson has chosen to side with Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama over the people of Florida.
I think one of the biggest political failures, and the biggest social failures, over the past few years has been the failure of empathy; not being able to look at the other person down the street.
I don't care if the average guy on the street really knows what I'm like, as long as he knows I'm not really a mean, vicious guy. My friends and family know what I'm really like. That's what's important.
I remember very much there in Falls Church there was a creek that was flowing down into 4 Mile Run. I believe it's now covered up where it goes under Columbia Street. I found a whole family of weasels down there.
After working for 14 years on Wall Street and growing up in a family with strong roots in small business, I know how important the entrepreneurial spirit is to attaining the American dream.
I remember specifically my mother telling me growing up don't put my business in the street. I was like seven, and I am like, 'What does that mean.'
My father was a journalist for 50 years in Leeds and Fleet Street. I thought about a career in business to show I could do something different, but the reaction among prospective employers was, shall we say, underwhelming.
Producing suits me because I have a business mind and a business sensibility. I was a street hustler. I did whatever it took. I sold whatever I could sell. I'm a good organiser.
It's no secret that big institutional investors have a lot of advantages on Wall Street. They get the first chance to buy hot initial public offerings. They get to meet in person with companies' managements.
If you go around being afraid, you're never going to enjoy life. You have only one chance, so you've got to have fun.
They very seldom let me lose my cool. They made me like I was Polly Perfect, which was ridiculous so that when I bump into kids on the street they'd say 'I wish my Mom were like you.'
Gradually I became aware of details: a company of French soldiers was marching through the streets of the town. They broke formation, and went in single file along the communication trench leading to the front line. Another group followed them.
To see change in your own area code is very powerful. There's a little orphanage down the street from my company, and we donate $1 from the sale of each CD we sell to the orphanage.
Some of the most vulnerable people to getting the SARS virus are health care providers. The general public, walking in the street, there is really not that much risk at all. It's a very, very low risk - a very, very low risk.
Washington is broken. Bailing out Wall Street with no strings attached while leaving middle class Arkansas taxpayers with the bill. Protecting insurance company profits instead of patients and lowering health costs.
I'd have these weird experiences where I'd just be walking down the street with this chord progression in my head, this happened more than a few times, and I'd walk home and find a fax in my machine and it would match the music in my head.
