Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist QUOTES

2 " I have no argument with those who see in organized religion a template or an imperative to live life according to a prescribed set of beliefs. Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like. "

― Michael J. Fox , Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

4 " Frankly, my height or lack thereof never bothered me much. Although there is no doubt that it has contributed to a certain mental toughness. I've made the most of the head start one gains from being underestimated. "

― Michael J. Fox , Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

6 " Sure, it may be one step forward and two steps back, but after a time with Parkinson's, I've learned that what is important is making that step count; always looking up. "

― Michael J. Fox , Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

8 " You suffer the blow, but you capitalize on the opportunity left in its wake. "

― Michael J. Fox , Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

10 " Chris[topher] Reeve wisely parsed the difference between optimism and hope. Unlike optimism, he said, 'Hope is the product of knowledge and the projection of where the knowledge can take us. "

― Michael J. Fox , Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

12 " Hanging out with Sam or any two-year-old is basically one big suicide watch. Their mission is to find one new way after another of offing themselves - piss in an electric socket, lick a pit bull's nose, chase an ice cream truck into traffic - and your job as a parent is to step in before it happens. "

― Michael J. Fox , Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

14 " To be brutally honest, for much of that time, I was the only person in the world with Parkinson's. Of course, I mean that in the abstract. I had become acutely aware of people around me who appears to have the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, but as long as they didn't identify with me, I was in no rush to identify with them. My situation allowed, if not complete denial, at least a thick padding of insulation. "

― Michael J. Fox , Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

16 " I saw, during the midterm campaign of 2006, how difficult it was for opponents of stem cell research to run against hope. And so it was in the 2008 presidential contest. This was hope in the collective, a definition that should always apply to the expression of a people's political will. Christopher Reeve had believed in a formula: optimism + information = hope. In this case, the informing agent was us. Granted, it may all look different in six months to a year, but it is hard not to be buoyed by the desire for positive change as articulated and advanced by Barack Obama. It is okay to hope. This time the aspiration of many will not be derided as desperation by a few, as it was during the stem cell debate of '06.

By the time you read this book, President Obama and the 111th Congress will have established federal funding for stem cell research. The dam has broken.

Just as I'd hoped. "

― Michael J. Fox , Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

18 " A lighthouse...speaks to the guiding nature of hope. By equal turns, it illuminates and darkens, so the way forward can be chosen in the light, and trusted in the darkness. "

― Michael J. Fox , Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

20 " Every failure I have considered my own, but every success has been shared. "

― Michael J. Fox , Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist