I knew that I did not have to buy into society's notion that I had to be handsome and healthy to be happy. I was in charge of my 'spaceship' and it was my up my down. I could choose to see this situation as a setback or as a starting point. I chose to begin life again.

The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress with its trials and its errors its successes and its setbacks can never be relaxed and never abandoned.

Life is a series of experiences each one of which makes us bigger even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.

These past years as we have been recovering and given our city a rebirth we have been encouraged by our faith knowledge and steadfast belief that we will pull through. There will be challenges and setbacks as there have already been but we will continue and we the citizens of New Orleans will prevail in bringing our city back.

In other words don't expect to always be great. Disappointments failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say 'we have a problem let's go and get it'.

And having a strong family you know we've lost some members of our family and had some setbacks but I think a good family and kids all those things I thought at one time... you got to be kidding me... Those things are so important they enable you to go on.

Notwithstanding these setbacks the dream of a beautiful American orchestra goes on and I share Dr. King's faith that each year we move inexorably closer to a magnificent opening night.

Competition got me off the farm and trained me to seek out challenges and to endure setbacks and in combination with my faith it sustains me now in my fight with Alzheimer's disease.

Abraham Lincoln comes from nothing has no education no money lives in the middle of nowhere on the frontier. And despite the fact that he suffers one tragedy and one setback after another through sheer force of will he becomes something extraordinary: not only the president but the person who almost single-handedly united the country.

I think exercise tests us in so many ways our skills our hearts our ability to bounce back after setbacks. This is the inner beauty of sports and competition and it can serve us all well as adult athletes.