Jody Heeter

“Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us; so be quick to love, make haste to be kind, and go in peace to follow the good road of blessing.”
― Pete Buttigieg, Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future

“But for others, work can only be meaningful if its fundamental purpose is in things that would matter even if no one would pay you to care about them.”
― Pete Buttigieg, Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future

“The top priority of the terrorist--even more important than killing you--is to make himself your top priority. This is why protecting ourselves from terrorist violence is not enough to defeat terrorism, especially if we try to achieve safety in ways that elevate the importance of terrorists and wind up publicizing their causes.”
― Pete Buttigieg, Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future

“To me, the whole episode was about what happens when a public official becomes obsessed with ideology and forgets that the chessboard on which he is playing out his strategy is, to a great many people, their own life story. Good policy, like good literature, takes personal lived experience as its starting point. At its best, the practice of politics is about taking steps that support people in daily life—or tearing down obstacles that get in their way. Much of the confusion and complication of ideological battles might be washed away if we held our focus on the lives that will be made better, or worse, by political decisions, rather than on the theoretical elegance of the policies or the character of the politicians themselves.”
― Pete Buttigieg, Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future