• 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.

Inspiration and genius — one and the same.”

– Victor Hugo

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda

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

– A wisdomism

A people who mean to be their Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

– James Madison

Passion makes perfect.”

– Eugene Biro

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

– Benjamin Franklin

The world I believed in, back in my most innocent, uninformed, childish mind—is real.”

– Martha Beck

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

– Thomas Edison

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

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

– Zig Ziglar

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

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

– Jim Butcher, White Night

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.”

– Joseph Addison

The only dream worth having is to live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead.”

– Arundhati Roy

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

– Brian Tracy

How do you stay resilient? It’s about momentum. Like riding a bicycle. If you stop you fall over. So I keep pedaling.”

– Diane Lane

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

– Ray Bradbury

The good ideas are all hammered out in agony by individuals, not spewed out by groups.”

– Charles Brower, Advertising Hall of Fame

There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”

– John Lennon

The journey is the reward.”

– Greg Norman

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

– Anna Pavlova

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

– Buddha

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

– Lao Tzu

4oz tequila + 1oz TripleSec + 2oz lime juice + 1oz simple syrup (sugar=water), 1 cup crushed ice. Shake + dance around the kitchen.

– Avenida Margarita

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

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

– Mae West

I may not be able to change what takes place, but I can always choose to change my thinking.”

– Michelle Sedas

‎No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

Letting go of expectations is a ticket to peace. It allows us to ride over every crisis—small or large—like a beach ball on water.”

– Martha Beck

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”

– Noela Evans

If you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”

– Oprah Winfrey

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?”

– Eve Ensler

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.”

– Mary Kay Ash

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

– Robert Louis Stevenson

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”

– Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.”

– Barack Obama

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.”

– Langston Hughes

If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.”

– Anna Quindlen

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

I was taught at a very young age that you can do whatever you want to, but you have to make it happen — not just talk about it.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court justice

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

– William Shakespeare

They who give have all things. They who withhold have nothing.”

– Hindu Proverb

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.