People with disabilities not only need to be given lives, they need to be given lives worth living. (paraphrased, not a direct quote)) - Helen Keller

We have found that our great philosophers and our great men of action are optimists. So, too, our most potent men of letters have been optimists in their books and in their lives. No pessimist ever won an audience commensurately wide with his genius, and many optimistic writers have been read and admired out of all measure to their talents, simply because they wrote of the sunlit side of life.

I was rather unwilling to study Latin grammar. It seemed absurd to waste time analyzing, every word I came across — noun, genitive, singular, feminine — when its meaning was quite plain. I thought I might just as well describe my pet in order to know it — order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; individual, Tabby.

...but I didn't dream that, that interview would be the door through which I should pass from darkness into light, from isolation to friendship, companionship, knowledge, love.