What You Do Defines You

"Deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you."

- Rachel Dawes to Bruce Wayne
Batman Begins

Seven Lakota Virtues

"While there are many things that any culture finds to be virtuous, there are seven virtues which are considered by many to be the heart of the Lakota lifestyle. These are Wocekiya or Prayer, Waohola or Respect, Waonsila, or Compassion, Wowijake, or Honesty, Wawokiye, or Generosity, Wahwala, or humility, and Woksape, or Wisdom."

Christians

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

-Gandhi

The Greatest Lesson

"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes."

- Winston Churchill

An Open Mind

"A mind is like a parachute; it only works when it is open."

- Sir James Dewar

Where?

"If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else."

- Yogi Berra

Small People

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

- Mark Twain

Hanging In There

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Surprising Results

"Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results."

- George Patton

Liberty

"Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought."

- Lord Anton

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

The committed person brings an energy, passion, and excitement that cannot be generated if you are only compliant, even genuinely compliant. The committed person doesn't play by the "rules of the game." He is responsible for the game. If the rules of the game stand in the way of achieving the vision, he will find ways to change the rules. A group of people truly committed to a common vision is an awesome force. They can accomplish the seemingly impossible.

- Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

Change

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

-- Gandhi

Highest Reward

"The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it."

-- John Ruskin

New Serenity Prayer

Lord, grant me the sereninty to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they pissed me off.

Life

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

-- Winston Churchill

Doing Right

"Sometimes you have to grit your teeth to do right."

-- Dr. Laura Scheslinger

Curiosity

"Curiosity is one fo the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect."

-- Dr. Johnson

People's Pasts

"Identifying people by their pasts is an insult to the capacity of human beings to overcome."

-- Dr. Laura Schlesinger

Sports and Character

"Sports do not build character. They reveal it."

-- Heywood Hale Brown, famed sportswriter-broadcaster

Alone

"When I had been a small boy, someone told me that the blood in your veins was blue, the way it looked through the skin, and that it only turned red when you exposed it to air. What I felt was one thing when I kept it in. It changed color entirely when I exposed it."

-- Spenser
The Widening Gyre, 1983, by Robert Parker

Home Run

" Hit the ball over the fence and you can take your time going around the bases."

-- John W. Roper

Insight

" Too much insight can be devastating to one's self-esteem."

-- Nancy Kennedy, friend and fellow social worker

Victory

"Be ashamed to die before you have won a victory for humankind."

-- Horace Mann

Love's Returns

"Love has an amazing law of return. If we give love, it will come back to us by some means or path. We don't get to choose how it will come back, but there will always be a compensation far greater than what we've given. And it may only be in eternity that we will reap its full consequences."

Love

"Something done for another out of love is not easily forgotten. It stays in the heart and only eternity will know its consequences."

Vulcan Greeting

"Greetings. I am pleased to see that we are different. May we together become better that the sum of both of us."

-- Star Trek

Philanthropy

"Never think you need to apologize for asking someone to give to a worthy cause, any more than as though you were giving him an opportunity to participate in a high-grade investment. The duty of giving is as much his as is the duty of asking yours."

-- John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Simon Wilder's Message

"You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself."

-- from the movie, With Honors

Volunteering

"Too many people are eager to volunteer to carry the piano stool when it's the piano that needs to be moved."

-- Ann Landers

Hitting

"A child hits a child and we call it agression.

A child hits an adult and we call it hostility.

An adult hits an adult and we call it assault and battery.

An adult hits a child and we call it discipline."

-- Haim Ginott

Heroes

Today's world may have heroes, the historian Daniel Boorstin tells us, but they are now overshadowed by celebrities: "The hero is known for achievements," he says, "the celebrity for well-knownness. The hero reveals the possibilities of human nature, the celebrity reveals the possibilities of the press and the media. Celebrities are people who make the news, but heroes are people who make history. Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities."

Most Service to Others

"I think I am of most service to others when I take the risk to express unconventional views, rather that saying what I think people want to hear. I then find a lot of similarly-minded people. My risking is like breaking the ice. Suddenly, other begin speaking out, too."

-- ???

Meeting Children's Parents

"The only reason I always try to meet and know the parents better is because it helps me to forgive their children."

-- Louis Johannot

Daybreak

"Someday all of this will have as much validity, no more and no lesss, as speculation as to the masculinity or feminity of the sun."

-- Nietzsche

May I Become...

May I become at all times, both now and forever
A protector for those without protection
A guide for those who have lost their way
A ship for those with oceans to cross
A bridge for those with rivers to cross
A sanctuary for those in danger
A lamp for those without light
A place of refuge for those who lack shelter
And a servant to all in need.

-- Dalai Lama

Imagine an America

...where every child is healthy, safe, and thriving, and where all children develop to their potential

...where all children are nurtured, getting what they need, as they require

...where all children grow into adults who are able to make positive contributions to family, community, and the nation

-- Children 2003, Gala Dinner and Award Presentations, 3/6/2003, Child Welfare League of America

Your Entire Existence

"It's silly to think that your entire existence depends upon other people's feelings about you."

-- Jerry Stiller in Esquire, May 2005

Genes

"I think that your genes give you the possibilities, but the way you were brought up influences whether you fulfill them. It's like your genes are a map of the city, but the directions you take are the way you were raised."

-- Tom, 19, a "super-baby", conceived with the help from the Nobel Prize sperm bank, when asked how much of a role genes play in who people become

Esquire, June 2005

Vanity

"If there is a single quality that is shared by all great men, it is vanity. But I mean by 'vanity' only that they appreciate their own worth. Without this kind of vanity they would not be great. And with vanity alone, of course, a man is nothing."

- Yousef Karsh

Balance

"All your problems are on the inside, in your heart. The problems aren't from the outside, from other people, so you really need to study who you are. Who's 100 percent you? If you understand your inside, then you're not afraid anymore."

-- Jet Li, discussing the Buddhist concept of balance, of inside--outside

Men's Health, September 2004

The Politics of Life

Sargent Shriver once expressed his political philosophy in a speech to a Peace Corps audience:

"The politics of death is bureaucracy, routine, rules, status quo. The politics of life is personal initiative, creativity, flair, dash, a little daring. The politics of death is calculation, prudence, measured gestures. The politics of life is experience, spontaneity, grace, directness. The politics of death is fear of youth. The politics of life is to trust the young to their own experiences."

More Bruce

"You see Bruce, triumph is born out of struggle. Faith is the alchemist."

Selfishness

"..that ... sensitiveness was truly but selfishness."

- Dick Elliot, pastor, Connecticut, excerpted from Crab's Hole: A Family Story of Tangier Island

Alone

"Because no matter how hard one man tries to reach out to another, there's a chasm that can't be crossed. A wall of solitude that can't be penetrated."

- Batman (Bruce Wayne) from the graphic novel, Spider-Man and Batman, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer)

Great Friends

"With friends like these, who needs hallucinations?"

- from Night Court

Arthur's Prayer

"May God grant us the wisdom to discover the right, the will to choose it, and the strength to make it endure. Amen."

- King Arthur's prayer at the Round Table, from the movie, First Knight

Love Lost

"A man who fears nothing is a man who loves nothing. And if you love nothing, what joy is there in your life?"

- King Arthur to Lancelot, the movie, First Knight

Camelot's Heart

King Arthur's response to Lancelot's asking about the inscription on the Round Table, "In Serving Each Other, We Become Free."

"That is the very heart of Camelot."
"Because it lives in us. It is a belief that we hold in our heart."

- from the movie, First Knight

Life's Journey

"The one thing wonderful about all the things that happened in the past is that they brought us to the exact moment now, right here, from where everything starts fresh and anew."

- from Touched by an Angel

Hurt

"Why does life hurt so much, Cai?" she asked suddenly, despairingly.

"It always hurts for those who feel deeply," he replied. "It is the price we must pay."

"It would be nice sometimes not to care."

"Easier, certainly. But would it really be worth it?"

- Queen Gwenhwykar to Cai, from The Road to Avalon by Joan Wolf

Ordinary

"For something to become ordinary, it must be taken for granted."

- David Matza, Becoming Deviant

Love Aches

" To stay means to lose the love of another possible lover. To leave means to lose the love of the possible lover."

- Julie Andrews, from the movie, The Man Who Loved Women

Consciousness

"A clever thing, this consciousness; it knows how to conceive. It brings things into being by just picturing them, and uses everything around it from which to draw pictures - including itself growing up. In consequence, mind grows up even more."

- David Matza, Becoming Deviant

The Ache

I remember crying - with all my heart and soul. Crying out in pain for Mom and Dad. They wanted so much for all to right for us kids, and I know that it hurt them deeply not to be able to provide us with all that the other kids had. I ached to my innermost core, praying to God to make everything better.

CA

Silent screams

Lead to

Broken dreams

As falling rain

Flows over

Purple plains

There's No Place Like Homepage

It's a new world order. So out with the old proverbs and in with the new.

• Home is where you hang your @.
• The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.
• Pentium wise, pen and paper foolish.
• The geek shall inherit the earth.
• A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.

- Reader's Digest

Man's Only Guide

"The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. We are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations. But with this shield, however the fates may play, we march in the ranks of honor,"

- Winston Churchill

Losing Interest in School

When kids lose interest in school, it is generally because:

• it's too tough (learning problems)
• peer issues (low self-esteem)

Answers

"You can't always fix what's broken; and you don't always have an answer that someone wants to hear."

- Mr. Howser to Doogie, Doogie Howser, M.D.

Signs from "Bruce Almighty"

The signs from the Homeless Guy (God) in Bruce Almighty:

"R EWE BLIND"
"LOOK TO YOURSELF"
"LIFE IS JUST"
"THY KINGDUMB COME"
"ALL FOR WON"
"GOD BEE GOOD HONEY" - Bruce: (with his own sign) "WHATEVER HE SAID ->"
"ARMAGEDON OUTA HERE"

"All For Won"

Words on a sign held by the homeless man (God) in the movie, "Bruce Almighty"

Brides & Grooms

"According to Modern Bride magazine, the average bride spends 150 hours planning her wedding. The average groom spends 150 hours going, "Yeah, sounds good."

- Jay Leno

Character

"If you don't have enemies, you don't have character."

- Paul Newman

Communication

"Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating."

- Jim Carrey in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

Failure

"Failure is God's way of saying, "Excuse me, you're moving in the wrong direction.""

- Oprah Winfrey

Integrity

"Take integrity over popularity and you'll always be cool."

- Carlos Santana in InStyle

My Father

"I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week."

- Mario Cuomo in Time

Graduation Advice

"When they said to you at graduation, 'Follow your dream,' did anybody say you have to wake up first?"

- Bill Cosby

A Question of Perception

"Maybe the whole thing's a question of perception."

"What is?"

"Well, it's not the way that people see you that's the problem. It's the way you see them seeing you."

- Bryan Brown to Mimi Rogers in "Full Body Massage"

An Individual

Be an individual by virtue of your unique contribution to the world - not by insulting or assaulting the world.

- from a long forgotten daily calendar of positive self advice

The Lost Gospels

Do you think these texts and your work allow people who have trouble with their faith to say, "Oh, there is another dimension here?"

To me, that's very important because, I think, if you try to swallow Christian faith as it is often taught, it's indigestible. There is an element in it that, if you must take it all literally, causes most people to raise questions. Was Jesus really born from a virgin? What do we mean by the resurrection of the dead? So, yes, my work and what I try to do in my books is an invitation to say, "We can think about these things." We can look at them historically. We can look at the Bible, not as something that just descended from heaven in a cloud of gold, but a collection, laboriously assembled by countless people, with some very powerful truths in it. But that doesn't mean we have to take it all as if it were literally true and just simply try to swallow it. We can think about it, we can discuss it. As Jesus says, "Let the ones who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. When he finds, he'll be troubled. When he's troubled, he'll be astonished." Jesus clearly invites us to a process of exploration - not simply a set of beliefs that we either accept or reject. We can hold to the elements we love about it, and say that for others, maybe it's different. And with this new evidence, I think that's a remarkable opportunity.

- from the Secret of the Code, p. 105

Cold

"I know a cold as cold as it gets,
I know a darkness that's darker than cold,
A wind that blows as cold as it gets,
Blew out the light of my soul."

- Lyrics from Impossible Dream by Patty Griffin
(Esquire, March 2004)