In the early 1960s, he founded the School of Youth for Social Services (SYSS) in Saigon. This grassroots relief organization rebuilt bombed villages, set up schools, established medical centers, and resettled families left homeless during the Vietnam War. He traveled to the U.S. to study at Princeton University, and later to lecture at Cornell University and Columbia University. His focus at the time was to urge the U.S. government to withdraw from Vietnam. He urged Martin Luther King, Jr. to publicly oppose the Vietnam War; King nominated Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in January 1967. He created the Order of Interbeing in 1966, establishing monastic and practice centers around the world. In 1973, the Vietnamese government denied Nhat Hanh permission to return to Vietnam and he went into exile in France. From 1976 to 1977 he led efforts to rescue Vietnamese boat people in the Gulf of Siam.

Nhất Hạnh has become an important influence in the development of Western Buddhism. His teachings and practices aim to appeal to people from various religious, spiritual, and political backgrounds, intending to offer mindfulness practices for more Western sensibilities. He lives in the Plum Village Monastery in the Dordogne region in the South of France, travelling internationally to give retreats and talks. He coined the term Engaged Buddhism in his book Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire. A long-term exile, he was given permission to make his first return trip to Vietnam in 2005 and has returned regularly since. He was awarded the Courage of Conscience award in 1991.

Nhất Hạnh has published more than 100 books, including more than 40 in English. A journal for the Order of Interbeing, The Mindfulness Bell, is published quarterly which includes a Dharma talk by him. Nhat Hanh continues to be active in the peace movement, promoting non-violent solutions to conflict. He has also been featured in many films, including The Power of Forgiveness showcased at the Dawn Breakers International Film Festival.

———————————

Sayings by Thich Nhat Hanh

1. Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

2. Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

3. When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.

4. We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.

5. Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.

6. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

7. Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.

8. People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

9. Because you are alive, everything is possible.

10. Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.

11. To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

12. Live your daily life in a way that you never lose yourself. When you are carried away with your worries, fears, cravings, anger, and desire, you run away from yourself and you lose yourself. The practice is always to go back to oneself.

13. People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong…Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

14. Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.

15. If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.

16. If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

17. Life is available only in the present moment.

18. A bodhisattva is someone who has compassion within himself or herself and who is able to make another person smile or help someone suffer less. Every one of us is capable of this.

19. Harm no person, animal, plant or mineral.

20. Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.

21. Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.

22. Many people think excitement is happiness…. But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.

23. I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight…I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.

24. When you say something really unkind, when you do something in retaliation your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and he will try hard to say or to do something back to get relief from his suffering. That is how conflict escalates.

25. Each moment is a chance for us to make peace with the world, to make peace possible for the world, to make happiness possible for the world.

26. If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.

Rudner was born in Miami, Florida, the daughter of Frances, a homemaker, and Abe Rudner, a lawyer. Her mother died when she was 13. After graduating from high school at 15, Rudner left Miami and headed to New York City to embark on a career as a dancer. She appeared in several Broadway shows, including the now-legendary original productions of Follies and Mack & Mabel.

1. A man will go to war, fight and die for his country. But he won’t get a bikini wax.

2. I don’t plan to grow old gracefully. I plan to have face-lifts until my ears meet.

3. Men reach their sexual peak at eighteen. Women reach theirs at thirty-five. Do you get the feeling that God is playing a practical joke?

4. We’ve begun to long for the pitter-patter of little feet – so we bought a dog. Well, it’s cheaper, and you get more feet.

5. I got kicked out of ballet class because I pulled a groin muscle. It wasn’t mine.

6. Some women hold up dresses that are so ugly and they always say the same thing: ‘This looks much better on.’ On what? On fire?

7. Some people think having large breasts makes a woman stupid. Actually, it’s quite the opposite: A woman having large breasts makes men stupid.

8. I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They’ve experienced pain and bought jewelry.

9. I know I want to have children while my parents are still young enough to take care of them.

10. I want to have children, but my friends scare me. One of my friends told me she was in labor for 36 hours. I don’t even want to do anything that feels good for 36 hours.

11. My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can’t decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives.

12. Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them.

13. To attract men, I wear a perfume called ‘New Car Interior.’

14. The word ‘aerobics’ came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we’re going to charge $10 an hour, we can’t call it Jumping up and down.

15. Men hate to lose. I beat my husband once at tennis. I asked him, “Will we ever make love again?” He said, “Yes…. but not with each other.

16. My husband gave me a necklace. It’s fake. I requested fake. Maybe I’m paranoid, but in this day and age, I don’t want something around my neck that’s worth more than my head.

17. I never know what to get my father for his birthday. I gave him a hundred dollars and said, ‘Buy yourself something that will make your life easier.’ So he went out and bought a present for my mother.

18. I love to sleep. Do you? Isn’t it great? It really is the best of both worlds. You get to be alive and unconscious.

19. Men forget everything; women remember everything. That’s why men need instant replay in sports. They’ve already forgotten what’s happened.

1. Harry Mitchell: Being earlier is just as bad as being late.

2. Harry Mitchell: [talks to David] You’re going to look for her, aren’t you? You won’t find her. They’ll make sure of it. Even if they weren’t trying to stop you, there are nine million people in this city. You’ll never find her. Forget about her. Move on with your life.

3. Richardson: Very few humans have seen what you’ve seen today. And we’re determined to keep it that way. So, if you *ever* reveal our existence, we’ll erase your brain. The intervention team will be sent, your emotions, your memories, your entire personality, will be expunged. Your friends and family will think you’ve gone crazy. You, well, you won’t think anything.

4. David Norris: I don’t care what you put in my way, I’m not giving up!

1. It’s never crowded along the extra mile.

2. Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.

3. There is no way to prosperity, prosperity is the way.

4. If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

5. You are always a valuable, worthwhile human being — not because anybody says so, not because you’re successful, not because you make a lot of money — but because you decide to believe it and for no other reason.

6. When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.

7. Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

8. Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

9. The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.

10. There’s nothing wrong with anger provided you use it constructively.

11. You leave old habits behind by starting out with the thought, ‘I release the need for this in my life’.

12. When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.

13. Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made.

14. Your children will see what you’re all about by what you live rather than what you say.

15. People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

16. The fact that you are willing to say, ”I do not understand, and it is fine,” is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.

17. All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won’t succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.

18. Real magic in relationships means an absence of judgment of others.

19. Successful people make money. It’s not that people who make money become successful, but that successful people attract money. They bring success to what they do.

20. Self-worth comes from one thing – thinking that you are worthy.

21. What comes out of you when you are squeezed is what is inside of you.

22. I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside.

23. Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

24. Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.

25. You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.

26. When I chased after money, I never had enough. When I got my life on purpose and focused on giving of myself and everything that arrived into my life, then I was prosperous.

27. You’ll seldom experience regret for anything that you’ve done. It is what you haven’t done that will torment you. The message, therefore, is clear. Do it! Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savor it. Value your present moments. Using them up in any self-defeating ways means you’ve lost them forever.

28. Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.

29. A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others, is stronger than any physical force in the universe.

In 1929 she married Franklin Rice, a bank vice-president in Dayton, Ohio. After the stock market crash in October that year, Franklin lost his job and his investments. He fell into a depression from which he never recovered, and committed suicide in 1932.

Rice became a successful businesswoman and lecturer, but found her most satisfying outlet in writing verse for a prominent greeting card company namely American Greetings. Her poems received wide exposure in the 1960s when several were read by Aladdin on the poetry segment of the Lawrence Welk television show.

The demand for her poems became so great that her books are still selling steadily after many printings, and she has been acclaimed as “America’s beloved inspirational poet laureate“. Helen Steiner Rice’s books of inspirational poetry have now sold nearly seven million copies. Her strong religious faith and the ability she had to express deep emotion give her poems timeless appeal.

1. Peace on earth will come to stay, When we live Christmas every day.

2. So what does it matter how long we may live if as long as we live we unselfishly give.

Tears of a Rose

Even that which is beautiful
Can sometimes bring pain,
So to love from the heart,
Is to invite the rain.
But to reach for the rose,
You must fear not the thorn,
So to love from the soul,
Is to embrace the storm.

Your Loved One lives In Your Heart

Many tender memories soften your grief,
May fond recollection bring you relief,
And may you find comfort and peace in the thought
Of the joy that knowing your loved one brought…
For time and space can never divide
Or keep your loved one from your side
When memory paints in colors true
The happy hours that belonged to you.

A Mother’s Love

A Mother’s love is something
that no on can explain,
It is made of deep devotion
and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish
and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it
or take that love away . . .

It is patient and forgiving
when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters
even though the heart is breaking . . .

It believes beyond believing
when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty
of the rarest, brightest gems . . .

It is far beyond defining,
it defies all explanation,
And it still remains a secret
like the mysteries of creation . . .
A many splendoured miracle
man cannot understand
And another wondrous evidence
of God’s tender guiding hand.

A mother’s love is like an island
In life’s ocean vast and wide,
A peaceful, quiet shelter
From the restless, rising tide.

A mother’s love is like a fortress
And we seek protection there
When the waves of tribulation
Seem to drown us in despair.

A mother’s love is a sanctuary
Where our soul can find sweet rest
From the struggle and the tension
Of life’s fast and futile quest.

A mother’s love is like a tower
Rising far above the crowd,
And her smile is like the sunshine
Breaking through a threatening cloud.

A mother’s love is like a beacon
Burning bright with Faith and Prayer
And through the changing scenes of life
We can find a haven there….

For a mother’s love is fashioned
After God’s enduring love,
It is endless and unfailing
Like the love of Him above.

For God knew in His great wisdom
That he couldn’t be everywhere,
So he put His little Children
In a loving mother’s care.

Climb ‘Til Your Dream Comes True

Often your tasks will be many,
And more than you think you can do.
Often the road will be rugged
And the hills insurmountable, too.
But always remember,
The hills ahead
Are never as steep as they seem,
And with Faith in your heart
Start upward
And climb ’til you reach your dream.
For nothing in life that is worthy
Is ever too hard to achieve
If you have the courage to try it,
And you have the faith to believe.
For faith is a force that is greater
Than knowledge or power or skill,
And many defeats turn to triumph
If you trust in God’s wisdom and will.
For faith is a mover of mountains,
There’s nothing that God cannot do,
So, start out today with faith in your heart,
And climb ’til your dream comes true!

The Magic Of Love

Love is like magic
And it always will be.
For love still remains
Life’s sweet mystery!!
Love works in ways
That are wondrous and strange
And there’s nothing in life
That love cannot change!!
Love can transform
The most commonplace
Into beauty and splendor
And sweetness and grace.
Love is unselfish,
Understanding and kind,
For it sees with its heart
And not with its mind!!
Love is the answer
That everyone seeks…
Love is the language,
That every heart speaks.
Love can’t be bought,
It is priceless and free,
Love, like pure magic,
Is life’s sweet mystery!

A Marriage Blessing

As you enter into the little world,
that you promised to make brighter for each other,
may He who harnesses the waves
and hanges the sun out in the sky
and puts the song in the birds
especially bless you
and make your marriage a good and happy one!

1. Help me, help you.

2. Show me the money!

3. Jerry Maguire: I won’t let you get rid of me.

4. Jerry Maguire: What do you want from me? My soul?
Dorothy: Why not? I deserve that much.

5. Jerry Maguire: The fuckin zoo is closed, Ray.
Ray: You said fuck.
Jerry Maguire: Uh… yeah… I…
Ray: Don’t worry. I won’t tell.

Plans for a film existed since shortly after the shark attack on Hamilton in 2003 and her subsequent recovery. After several false starts to production, McNamara was attached to direct the film. While the film is based on Hamilton’s 2004 biographical book, the director and producer David Brookwell interviewed the family to learn about unpublished conflicts to include in the film. Filming took place in Hawaii in early 2010, and Robb wore a green sleeve on her arm so visual effects could be added in post-production to create the appearance of a stump. Additional filming took place in Tahiti in August 2010.

FilmDistrict, which was launched in September 2010, formed a partnership with TriStar Pictures to release Soul Surfer in theaters. The company originally anticipated releasing the film in 300 theaters, but the company was impressed enough with the final product to pursue a release in 2,000 theaters. The film was released in theaters in the United States and Canada on April 8, 2011.

Award won by Bethany Hamilton

1. I don’t know why terrible things happen to us sometimes. But I have to believe that something good is going to come out of this.

2. Don’t be sorry for compassion … it can move us to do amazing things..

3. People are so amazing. There’s an eighth grader from North Carolina, who lost his arm. Logan, and he says he’s gonna try out for his school soccer team because of me.

4. So don’t take just any wave that comes along. The greatest surfers, they all have this sixth sense. They know when the best waves are coming. They can feel it. It’s a gift. You have that gift too.

5. Listen to your instinct. Trust it.

6. What am I supposed to do now? You’re supposed to enjoy it. All of it. For the rest of your life.

7. Hey, Malina. Great job. You’re a tough opponent. Bethany Hamilton, nobody is as tough as you.

8. Bethany, I’m from Transworld Surf Magazine. Are you upset you didn’t win today? I didn’t come to win. I came to surf.

9. I wouldn’t change what happened to me, because then I wouldn’t have this chance in front of all of you. This chance to embrace more people than I ever could have with two arms.

10. I was born to surf. This is why I wake up at the crack of dawn every day. This is why I endure belly rashes, reef cuts, muscles so tired they feel like noodles.

11. And I’ve learned that life is a lot like surfing. When you get caught in the impact zone, you need to get right back up because you never now what’s over the next wave.

12. If you have faith, anything is possible. Anything at all.

13. I don’t need easy. I just need possible.

Neruda wrote in a variety of styles such as erotically charged love poems as in his collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once called him “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.” Neruda always wrote in green ink as it was his personal color of hope.

On July 15, 1945, at Pacaembu Stadium in São Paulo, Brazil, he read to 100,000 people in honor of Communist revolutionary leader Luís Carlos Prestes. During his lifetime, Neruda occupied many diplomatic positions and served a stint as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. When Conservative Chilean President González Videla outlawed communism in Chile in 1948, a warrant was issued for Neruda’s arrest. Friends hid him for months in a house basement in the Chilean port of Valparaíso. Later, Neruda escaped into exile through a mountain pass near Maihue Lake into Argentina. Years later, Neruda was a close collaborator to socialist President Salvador Allende. When Neruda returned to Chile after his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Allende invited him to read at the Estadio Nacional before 70,000 people.

1. Someday, somewhere – anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.

2. The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.

3. A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived in him and who he will miss terribly.

4. Laughter is the language of the soul.

5. You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.

6. Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.

7. I think it was very informative, but a lot still needs to be done.

8. my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping but I shall go on living.

Of everything I have seen,
it’s you I want to go on seeing:
of everything I’ve touched,
it’s your flesh I want to go on touching.
I love your orange laughter.
I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.

What am I to do, love, loved one?
I don’t know how others love
or how people loved in the past.
I live, watching you, loving you.
Being in love is my nature.

_____________________________

Never an illness, nor the absence
of grandeur, no,
nothing is able to kill the best in us,
that kindness, dear sir, we are afflicted with:
beautiful is the flower of man, his conduct,
and every door opens on the beautiful truth
and never hides treacherous whispers.

I always gained something from making myself better,
better than I am, better than I was,
that most subtle citation:
to recover some lost petal
of the sadness I inherited:
to search once more for the light that sings
inside of me, the unwavering light.

______________________________

Sonnet XXV

Before I loved you, love, nothing was my own:
I wavered through the streets, among
Objects:
Nothing mattered or had a name:
The world was made of air, which waited.

I knew rooms full of ashes,
Tunnels where the moon lived,
Rough warehouses that growled ‘get lost’,
Questions that insisted in the sand.

Everything was empty, dead, mute,
Fallen abandoned, and decayed:
Inconceivably alien, it all

Belonged to someone else – to no one:
Till your beauty and your poverty
Filled the autumn plentiful with gifts.

______________________________

Love Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, claiming to be raped at age nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

1. Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.

2. The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.

3. What God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine.

4. So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground.

5. I don’t think you ever stop giving. I really don’t. I think it’s an on-going process. And it’s not just about being able to write a check. It’s being able to touch somebody’s life.

6. As you become more clear about who you really are, you’ll be better able to decide what is best for you – the first time around.

7. Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.

8. Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.

9. Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.

10. My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.

11. Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.

12. For everyone of us that succeeds, it’s because there’s somebody there to show you the way out.

13. I don’t believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.

14. I don’t think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.

15. I have a lot of things to prove to myself. One is that I can live my life fearlessly.

16. If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.

17. If you want to accomplish the goals of your life, you have to begin with the spirit.

18. It isn’t until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are – not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within – that you can begin to take control.

19. It’s much easier for me to make major life, multi-million dollar decisions, than it is to decide on a carpet for my front porch. That’s the truth.

20. Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.

21. Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.

22. My idea of heaven is a great big baked potato and someone to share it with.

23. Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.

24. Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.

25. The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.

26. The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.

27. The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free.

28. The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be.

29. Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.

30. Turn your wounds into wisdom.

31. Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.

32. Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.

33. What I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.

34. What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only in your own life, but in other people’s lives.

35. Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.

36. You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.

37. You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.

38. I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if we are not wise enough to see it.

39. True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.”

40. One of the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.

41. You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.

42. I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.

43. You get to know who you really are in a crisis.

44. Your true passion should feel like breathing; it’s that natural.

45. You don’t become what you want, you become what you believe.

46. When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are.

47. Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a new way to stand.

48. Self-esteem comes from being able to define the world in your own terms and refusing to abide by the judgments of others.

49. If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.

50. You look at yourself and you accept yourself for who you are, and once you accept yourself for who you are you become a better person.

51. The big secret in life is there is no secret. Whatever your goal. You can get there if you’re willing to work.

52. I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, but it hasn’t changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I’m just wearing better shoes.

53. You are where you are in life because of what you believe is possible for yourself.

54. Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom.

55. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you – always.

1. As far as the men who are running for president are concerned, they aren’t even people I would date.

2. Beware of men who cry. It’s true that men who cry are sensitive to and in touch with feelings, but the only feelings they tend to be sensitive to and in touch with are their own.

3. Summer bachelors, like summer breezes, are never as cool as they pretend to be.

4. I am continually fascinated at the difficulty intelligent people have in distinguishing what is controversial from what is merely offensive.

5. [A successful parent is one] who raises a child who grows up and is able to pay for his or her own psychoanalysis.

6. I don’t care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you’re also writing your Oscar acceptance speech.

7. You enter into a certain amount of madness when you marry a person with pets.

8. I try to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are.

9. If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters.

10. In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.

11. Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.

12. My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have the potential to be comic stories the next.

13. What my mother believed about cooking is that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you.

14. The desire to get married, which – I regret to say, I believe is basic and primal in women – is followed almost immediately by an equally basic and primal urge – which is to be single again.

15. What will happen to sex after liberation? Frankly, I don’t know. It is a great mystery to all of us.

16. It struck me that the movies had spent more than half a century saying, ”They lived happily ever after” and the following quarter-century warning that they’ll be lucky to make it through the weekend. Possibly now we are now entering a third era in which the movies will be sounding a note of cautious optimism: You know it just might work.

17. Whenever I get married, I start buying Gourmet magazine.