Political Quotes

“Finally, Senator, if I could do this, I know as part of standing on this floor, you are not standing here over words in draft legislation, you are standing here because of people. I sat with you, and we talked about people in your community who had been affected. I would love to tell you the story about just one Virginian, if I could, and then I would love to have you comment on the story I am going to tell you. I could tell a lot of stories about a lot of different people, but one just epitomizes to me so plainly this challenge, and it is a story of a man named Liviu Lebrescu. Liviu Lebrescu was one of the people who were killed at Virginia Tech. He was a professor of aerospace engineering. He was an amazing professor. On April 16, 2007, when Seung-Hui Cho came into Norris Hall and started shooting people, he stood in front of the door and told his engineering students to try to get out of the window so that they would be safe. He blocked the door, and Seung-Hui Cho was shooting bullets through the door. He kept saying: Hurry, hurry, hurry. Until the last breath he took, he told students to hurry. Everyone in his class got out the window except one other student, Minal Panchal, who stayed behind and encouraged others to go ahead of them. Professor Lebrescu was one of the 32 killed that day. Here is the amazing thing about Liviu Lebrescu that I just find myself continuing to contemplate. Liviu Lebrescu was 76 years old. He was born in the 1930s as a Jew in Romania.…”