“We need to keep this country great by continuing its long tradition of being inclusive, of fighting the forces of exclusion that threaten us every day.

We must build bridges between people, and we must also build walls: the walls of new kitchens, new schools, new hospitals.

If we continue to be inclusive and welcoming, we are only going to keep moving it forward, to make the America we all dream of.”

José Andrés, chef, Spanish, American

“Writing is an escape from a world that crowds me. I like being alone in a room. It’s almost a form of meditation- an investigation of my own life.”

“Everything hangs on how we define ourselves and how we treat those with whom we share our surroundings,

which are teeming with different ethnicities, religions and cultures. We are doomed if we lose independent thinking, lose the ability to freely evaluate and define ourselves”

Source: The Question We Must Keep Asking  (We can only define ourselves by continually re-evaluating our humanness)

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”

Leonard Bernstein, composer, conductor, educator