It's no longer an exaggeration to say that middle-class Americans are an endangered species.

But you have to do what you dream of doing even while you're afraid.

The economic game is not supposed to be rigged like some shady ring toss on a carnival midway.

There is nothing like becoming a mom to fill you with fear.

I'm pulling out, and I'm going to concentrate every ounce of time and energy over the next week working to defeat the recall because I realize now that's the only way to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Mainstream media tend to just mouth the conventional wisdom, to see everything through the filter of right and left.

Liberation is an ever shifting horizon, a total ideology that can never fulfill its promises. It has the therapeutic quality of providing emotionally charged rituals of solidarity in hatred - it is the amphetamine of its believers.

It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills and abilities and disastrous to force them to suppress their specifically female characteristics and abilities by keeping up the pretense that there are no differences between the sexes.

There's no love more intense than the love we have for our kids - and where there is intense love, there is also intense fear lurking beneath the surface.

I think while all mothers deal with feelings of guilt, working mothers are plagued by guilt on steroids!

Our current obsession with creativity is the result of our continued striving for immortality in an era when most people no longer believe in an after-life.

Increasingly, staying in the middle class - let alone aspiring to become middle class - is becoming a game of chance.

Trying to be Supermom is as futile as trying to be Perfect Mom. Not going to happen.

The middle class is teetering on the brink of collapse just as surely as AIG was in the fall of 2009 - only this time, it's not just one giant insurance company (and its banking counterparties) facing disaster, it's tens of millions of hardworking Americans who played by the rules.

The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism and become a fearless is mother is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly - indeed to embrace uncertainty and imperfection.

But, in fact, there is nothing that can bring you closer to fearlessness about everything else in the world than being a parent - because everyday fears - like not being approved of - pale by comparison to the fears you have about your children.

The more we refuse to buy into our inner critics - and our external ones too - the easier it will get to have confidence in our choices, and to feel comfortable with who we are - as women and as mothers.

We need to accept that we won't always make the right decisions, that we'll screw up royally sometimes - understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success.

Not only is it harder to be a man, it is also harder to become one.

America is a country ready to be taken, in fact, longing to be taken by political leaders ready to restore democracy and trust to the political process.

Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.

It's no longer an exaggeration to say that middle-class Americans are an endangered species.

The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism and become a fearless mother is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly - indeed to embrace uncertainty and imperfection.

We need to accept that we wont always make the right decisions that well screw up royally sometimesunderstanding that failure is not the opposite of success its part of success.

Today we often use deadlinesreal and imaginaryto imprison ourselves.

We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.

Naysayers have little power over us – unless we give it to them.

Having a partner definitely allows you to take more risks.

The goal of any true resistance is to affect outcomes, not just to vent. And the only way to affect outcomes and thrive in our lives is to find the eye in the hurricane and act from that place of inner strength.

Lasting social change unfolds from inside out: from the inner to the outer being, from inner to outer realities.

Often, you'll fail. But, as my mother also taught me, failure isn't the opposite of success - it's a stepping stone to success.

We need to accept that we won't always make the right decisions, that we'll screw up royally sometimes understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success.

Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage. This has been the second longest period without a pay raise since the Federal minimum wage law was first enacted in 1938.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Americans seem sometimes to believe that if you are a thinker you must be a frowning bore, because thinking is so damn serious.

Americans are big boys. You can talk them into almost anything. Just sit with them for half an hour over a bottle of whiskey and be a nice guy.

Alabama citizens, like the vast majority of Americans, respect and value the meaning of decency, and appreciate public institutions that reflect the common values of our society.

People are stunned to hear that one company has data files on 185 million Americans.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government.

I understand about this idea of terror and what it means to Americans and this idea that we can't just walk around free like we did; life has changed.

I mean, the reality is unemployment today - over 14 million Americans are unemployed. That's exactly what it was a year ago. I mean, this - the American people know we can't borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.

There seems to be this sense among even well-meaning Americans that Africa is this black hole of murder and mutilation that can never be fixed, no matter what aid is brought in.

Currently, not only are Americans taxed on what they earn, but those assets are taxed again when they are passed on to a loved one.

In 2001, Congress passed much needed tax relief to allow Americans to keep more of their hard earned money and spend it as they see fit - rather than how the federal government sees fit.

Most Americans approach the problems of the Middle East with a pro-Israeli bias - and rightly so.

Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look - historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.

In the United States, there one feels free... Except from the Americans - but every pearl has its oyster.

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

I know that we're being inexorably taken over by the Americans. Without a doubt. I don't mean invaded or anything like that, just taken over. By degrees.