The Wright Brothers: "Every day, they knew they'd fail. Every time they'd go out to fly — every time — they brought extra materials because they knew their fledgling design would crash. Crash and rebuild. Crash and rebuild. But never ever, ever give up."
Another aviator, Amelia Earhart once said: "Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn't be done."
Jesse Owens: "Competed in four events at the 1936 Olympics. He won the gold medal in all four. And when he stood on the victory platform surrounded by swastikas and soldiers, the German crowd of 110,000 couldn't help but cheer. Rising to their feet, they were no longer chanting Hitler's name. They were cheering for Jesse Owens."
The actor Paul Newman once said that "a man with no enemies is a man with no character."
Muhammad Ali: "No one floated faster. No one stung harder. No one taunted louder. And no one — black or white, activist or athlete — brought more beauty, grace or personality. But what made him the greatest? He never — ever — apologized for being who he was."
"Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over." — Bella Abzug, who purposely never learned to type in school so that she would never be seen as a secretary.
Another aviator, Chesley B. (Sully) Sullenberger: "After 'the engines went dead'... he kept his calm and saved 155 lives by gently landing US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience: education and training. And on January 15 the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal."
This reviewer experienced pride, amusement, inspiration, and now and then, a few tears of joy. Meltzer got the idea for the book on the day his first son was born.
He writes: “I decided right there that I’d write this book over the course of my son’s life — that I’d fill it with advice and good ideas. I started that very night, writing the instructions he needed to be a good man:
1. Love God.
2. Be nice to the fat kid in class.”
Contact book reviewer Vick Mickunas at vick@vickmickunas.com