• Columnists

Pam Ray, Lobbyist

COLUMN = GOVERNMENT RELATIONS

Pam has more than three decades of in-depth experience in policy and politics, with expertise in congressional budget/appropriations and federal grant programs.

Her select policy experience includes housing and community development, housing finance, transit/transportation, taxes, and trade.

With a focus on bridging the knowledge gap between elected officials and their constituents, Pam has achieved success in her own government relations business for 16 years and for elected officials in the US Senate, US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs (1989-95), and the NYS Senate Federal Affairs Office (1986-1989).

For more information, visit www.pamrayllc.com.

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche

Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.”

– Anthony Trollope

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb

No longer talk at all about the kind of man a good man ought to be, but be such.”

– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
 what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

– Thomas Edison

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

– Brian Tracy

If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there’d be millions of no-brained, harebrained individuals quitting their day jobs.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

But all the while I was alone, the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

– Bob Dylan

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.”

– Benjamin Disraeli

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

– Thomas Edison

This is the age when magical technologies make more and more radically fun ideas plausible, even easy. You’re only limited by your creativity.”

– Martha Beck

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

You don’t love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.”

– L.J. Smith

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

– Abraham Lincoln

By your stumbling the world is perfected.”

– Sri Aurobindo

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Never never never never give up.”

– Winston Churchill

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

The gem cannot be polished without friction; nor man perfected without trials.”

– Chinese proverb

You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

If people like you they’ll listen to you; if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

– Zig Ziglar

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.”

– Edgar W. Howe

To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.”

– Anna Pavlova

We never know how high we are
 till we are called to rise;
 And then, if we are true to plan,
 Our statures touch the skies.”

– Emily Dickinson

I don’t do very well without fear. There needs to be a part of me saying, ‘That’s going to fail,’ so I can prove myself wrong.”

– Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism

A person who learns to juggle six balls will be more skilled than the person who never tries to juggle more than three.”

– Marilyn vos Savant

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

– Jimi Hendrix

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

– Magical

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

Some things are destined to be—it just takes us a couple of tries
to get there.”

– J.R. Ward, Lover Mine

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

– Joseph Campbell

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

– Mark Twain

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

A man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”

– Chinese Proverb

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.”

– Ray Bradbury

Traveling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance.”

– Benjamin Franklin

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

– Marcel Proust

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

– Lao Tzu

The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”

– William James