OISIE: There once were two children who could see the bright side of any situation. One day, they are put in a room filled with manure. Hours later they are discovered laughing, scooping up the manure, digging underneath. "What on earth are you doing?" the children are asked. With beaming smiles they answer, "All this poop, there has to be a pony in here somewhere."

from Looking for the Pony

CHESTER: I knew I would be a lawyer the moment I realized that the founders had left me out of the constitution. That the very thing I had pledged allegiance to since I could talk, was conceived without me and yet, through the transformative power of democracy I had been added to the roster, given permission, in deed, instructed to prosper. Now I pledge to do my part to form a more perfect union.

from One Nation Under

ZOE: I’m a liar and a cheat…too blind, too hopeful, too lazy, too…shielded. If someone had told me when I was nine or twelve or sixteen or twenty-five years old, on the very cusp of my so-called success, I would never have believed I'd do what I've done. All that suffering and filth. I want to be the Zoe I started out to be. I liked her better. That little girl who heard Martin Luther King Junior’s speech. At like ten, I'd lie in bed making up my own speeches falling asleep talking about how all we have to do is love each other, at the very least do unto others - the Talmud says, "Whoever destroys a single life destroys the entire world; whoever saves a single life, saves the entire world." I knew and I knew other people knew. And I knew that all the people that knew needed to get together and tell everyone else so that everyone knew. But I didn't find the people who knew. I found you.

from Eclipse