Wise quotables help usher isle notables into new year

Let’s start the year on a positive note with motivational thoughts from great minds to soothe the sore feelings of newsmakers I may have inadvertently offended in 2012:

For President Barack Obama: "I’ll never go THERE again. It’s the stupidest tea party I ever was at in all my life!" — Alice, "Alice in Wonderland"

For Gov. Neil Abercrombie: "Of course I have gone mad with power. Have you ever tried going mad without power? It’s boring. No one listens to you!" — Russ Cargill, "The Simpsons"

For Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui: "Of all men’s words, there’s none so fine, as these three words: ‘I’ve got mine!’" — Hagar the Horrible

For U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz: "I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously, but I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure." — George W. Bush

For U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono: "When a member of the House moves over to the Senate, it raises the IQ of both bodies." — Everett Dirksen

For retired U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka: "I enjoy waking up and not having to go to work. So I do it three or four times a day." — Gene Perret

For U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa: "Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone." — Jim Fiebig

For U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: "A sign of celebrity is that the name is often worth more than the services." — Daniel J. Boorstin

For state Senate President Donna Mercado Kim: "Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." — W.C. Fields

For state Rep. Joe Souki, seeking to return as House speaker: "There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure." — Jack E. Leonard

For Mayor Kirk Caldwell: "There are two types of people: those that listen and then those that wish they had listened." — Bishop Brian Leroy Caines

For City Council Chairman Ernie Martin: "Politics is the art of postponing decisions until they are no longer relevant." — Henri Queuille

For University of Hawaii President M.R.C. Greenwood: "I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." — Robert McCloskey

For UH "Wonder Blunder" twins Jim Donovan and Rich Sheriff: "There’s a difference between a failure and a fiasco … a fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions." — Orlando Bloom, "Elizabethtown"