It’s a new year, time to put aside past hard feelings for a fresh start.

So to public officials I may have offended in 2016, I offer inspirational quotations from the great minds to lift them into 2017:

For President Barack Obama: “That’s all I can stands and I can’t stands no more.” – Popeye

For President-elect Donald Trump: “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” – H.L. Mencken

For Gov. David Ige: “The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.” – George Jessel

For Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui: “I have my friends. Someone spoke to me only yesterday.” – Eeyore

For U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz: “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” – Laurence J. Peter

For U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono: “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.” – Dorothy Parker

For U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: “If my work was good enough, I would never have to do publicity.” – David Duchovny

For U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa: “Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.” – Franklin P. Jones

For State Senate President Ron Kouchi: “You get fifteen Democrats in a room, and you get twenty opinions.” – U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy

For House Speaker Joe Souki: “Every speaker has a mouth, an arrangement rather neat. Sometimes it’s filled with wisdom, sometimes it’s filled with feet.” – Robert Orben

For House Republican Leader Beth Fukumoto Chang: “If you’re a misfit within a group of misfits, does that mean you’re actually popular and normal?” – Laura Preble

For legislative budget writers, Sen. Jill Tokuda and Rep. Sylvia Luke: “Arithmetic is being able to count to twenty without taking off your shoes.” – Mickey Mouse

For Mayor Kirk Caldwell: “The will to win is worthless if you don’t get paid for it.” – Reggie Jackson

For Charles Djou : “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison

For interim Oahu rail CEO Krishniah N. Murthy: “An expert is a person who avoids small error as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy.” – Benjamin Stolberg

For Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi: “In the first place God made idiots. That was for practice; then he made school boards.” – Mark Twain

For Police Chief Louis Kealoha: “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” – Groucho Marx

For Billy Kenoi: “I don’t have a drinking problem ‘cept when I can’t get a drink.” – Tom Waits

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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.