In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.
Unless you're living on the street and surviving on a diet of discarded turkey drumsticks, there's no point in being gloomy. We've spent too long trying to cheer ourselves up by spending money on brightly coloured things we don't really need. We've stopped using our imaginations.
I moved from Moscow to Rome with my family and two bicycles in 1998, and spent a lot of that year- and the next - obsessed, I am sorry to admit, with the bicycles. Italy, after all, was a place where thousands of middle-aged men felt perfectly comfortable spending many hours a week in brightly colored spandex.
Family holidays and weekends are really brightly colored memories, full of my mother and father, rather than our nannies and au pairs.
My basics are black, white, or neutral, and I'll wear a ton of jewelry or carry a brightly colored bag.
I faced odds when glaucoma took the bat out of my hands. But I didn't give in or feel sorry for myself. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: 'It may be cloudy in my right eye, but the sun is shining very brightly in my left eye.'
Go, forget me - why should sorrow, O'er that brow a shadow fling? Go, forget me - and tomorrow, brightly smile and sweetly sing. Smile - though I shall not be near thee; Sing - though I shall never hear thee.
It's better to burn brightly for half as long than to be a dim lingering light.
Without the brave efforts of all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines and their families, this Nation, along with our allies around the world, would not stand so boldly, shine so brightly and live so freely.
Our educational system is like an automobile which has strong rear lights, brightly illuminating the past. But looking forward things are barely discernible.