Being happy doesn't mean 
          that everything is perfect.
         It means that you've decided 
       to look beyond the imperfections.
                                                               -anonymous

"Being defeated is often a temporary condition.
Giving up is what makes it permanent."
-Marilyn Von

"Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told:
    'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'"
                                                    – Maya Angelou

About Maya Angelou

American poet and author Maya Angelou is best known for her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She was born in St. Louis in 1928 and grew up in rural Arkansas. Due to her activism, Martin Luther King asked her to take a leadership position in his organization. In 1993, at President Clinton's request, she wrote and performed a poem at his inauguration. She has also directed films and appeared on television. She teaches at Wake Forest University.

                         ONE DEGREE
  At 211 degrees, water is hot.
  At 212 degrees, it boils.
  And with boiling water, comes steam.
  And steam can power a locomotive.
  One extra degree...makes all the difference.
  And, one extra degree of effort in life  
    separates the good from the great!

"There ain't nothing from the outside can lick any of us."
– Margaret Mitchell

About Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell wrote just one book, the immensely successful Civil War novel, Gone With the Wind, which she wrote while convalescing with a broken ankle, basing it on tales her relatives had told her. She then put the book away until a publisher asked if she had ever written a novel. After giving him the manuscript, she got cold feet and asked for it back, but he'd already begun reading. The book still sells more than 200,000 copies a year. She was born in Atlanta in 1900 and died in 1949.

"There are two primary choices in life; 
  to accept conditions as they exist, or
  accept the responsibility for changing them."

"However brilliant the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
                                                           -Sir Winston Churchill

"We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are."
                                                                     – Tobias Wolff

About Tobias Wolff

American author Tobias Wolff is best known for the memoir A Boy's Life, about Wolff's childhood with an itinerant mother and abusive stepfather. He was born in 1945 in Alabama and spent most of his childhood in the Pacific Northwest. His book In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War recounts his experiences as a young soldier in Vietnam. He is an acclaimed writing professor at Stanford University. He has three children.

"I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well."
                                                                              – Diane Ackerman

About Diane Ackerman

American poet and nonfiction author Diane Ackerman has written more than 20 books and is best known for the eloquently written best seller The Natural History of the Senses. She was born in Illinois in 1948. While working toward her Ph.D. at Cornell, she studied both arts and sciences, feeling "the universe wasn't knowable from only one perspective." She has a molecule named after her: the dianeacerkone. She lives in upstate New York with her novelist husband.

"If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up some place else."
                                          - Yogi BerraYogi Berra

"Often it isn't the mountains ahead that wear you out, it's the little pebble in your shoe." 
                                    -Muhammad Ali

"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones."
                                                                  – Phillips Brooks

About Phillips Brooks

Phillips Brooks, the American clergyman now mostly known for writing the words to the Christmas song, "O Little Town of Bethlehem," was one of the most influential ministers of his time, with his sermons reprinted in major newspapers. He delivered the eulogy at Abraham Lincoln's funeral. Born in Boston in 1835, he spent most of his life there as overseer of Harvard University, rector of Trinity Church, and bishop of Massachusetts. He died in 1893, and the day of his funeral was declared an official day of mourning.

               "I'd rather regret the things I've done
               than regret the things I haven't done."
                                                                                   - Lucile Ball

"Gratitude is the open door to abundance."
-Yogi BahjanYogi Bhajan

      "A man cannot be comfortable
         without his own approval."
                                                    – Mark Twain

About Mark Twain

Samuel Clemens, the iconic American humorist and writer, is better known by his pen name Mark Twain. He was born in 1835 in Missouri. He worked at several jobs, including steamboat pilot and miner. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, and other successful novels. His writing captured a very American vernacular and flavor, and helped create a distinctive American literature. He died in 1910.

"You're only given a little spark of madness.
             You mustn't lose it."
                                             – Robin Williams

"I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it."
- Harry Emerson Fosdick

"It's a funny thing about life;
if you refuse to accept
anything but the best,
you very often get it."
- W. Somerset Maugham

"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering."
                                         -Saint Augustine

               "When the heart speaks,
         the mind finds it indecent to object."
                                                                 – Milan Kundera

About Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera, the modernist Czech novelist best known for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, laces politics and philosophical digressions into his complex narrative structure. He was born in 1929 on April Fool's Day, and his first novel was, appropriately enough, The Joke. An ardent reformist, he was ejected from the Communist party twice for speaking out against repression. In 1975, he fled to France, where he still teaches.

"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody."
                                          – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

About Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a beloved American poet of the 19th century, is best known for "The Song of Hiawatha" and "Evangeline." He was born in Maine in 1807. He knew Latin by the age of six, and when he taught at Bowdoin College, he wrote the textbooks himself. He courted his second wife while teaching at Harvard and frequently walked the several miles from Cambridge to Boston across the West Boston Bridge. The bridge that replaced it was named the Longfellow Bridge in his honor. He died in 1882.

    "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea,
      never regains its original dimensions."
                                                – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

About Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., one of the greatest American jurists of the twentieth century, was called the Great Dissenter because of the brilliance of his dissenting opinions. He was born in Boston in 1841 and was named for his father, the author and doctor. He was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1902 and became known for his pithy, quotable opinions. He stood strong on free-speech rights and was an advocate of judicial restraint and objectivity. He died in 1935.

            "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. 
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful
beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us. We ask ourselves:
'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, 
      talented and fabulous?'
           Actually, who are you not to be?"
                                               -Nelson Madellla Nelson Mandela

Ever so often I need to be reminded
of this. Come to think of it, I did
not get to the top of Longs Peak in
a single bound!

   "Victory is won not in miles but in inches.
     Win a little now, hold your ground,
     and later, win a little more."
                                                                     – Louis L'Amour

About Louis L'Amour

Louis L'Amour, the author known for his pulp westerns, wrote more than 100 novels in his lifetime. Born in North Dakota in 1908 as Louis LaMoore, he worked across the southwestern U.S. on a string of backbreaking jobs including longshoreman, elephant handler, and cattle skinner. He saw his writing as akin to telling tales by a campfire and wanted to be remembered simply as a good storyteller. He won the Medal of Freedom in 1984 and died in 1988.

 

"Your vision will become clear only when
  you look into your heart. Who looks outside,
  dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."
                                                                     – Carl Jung

About Carl Jung

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who originated such well-known psychological concepts as the archetype and the collective unconscious, has provided inspiration to people ranging from Joseph Campbell to Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was born in 1875 in a small town; he studied with Sigmund Freud before parting ways due to the radical difference in their views of human nature. Jung is considered second only to Freud in his influence on modern psychology, particularly in the area of dream analysis. He died in 1961.

   "Nothing will ever be attempted if all
possible objections must first be overcome."
                                                Samuel Johnson

About Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson, the sharp-witted British essayist, wrote the first English language dictionary; his definitions still form the backbone of current dictionaries. He was born in Staffordshire in 1709. Johnson married a widow 20 years his senior and lived in poverty before achieving success with his essays when he was in his forties. Later in life, he befriended the young James Boswell, whose Life of Johnson became the quintessential English biography. Johnson died in 1784.

"I, not events, have the power to make me

           happy or unhappy today.

      I can choose which it shall be."
                                                             – Groucho Marx

About Groucho Marx

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was the wisecracking central figure of the Marx Brothers comedy team, waggling his eyebrows in movies like Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera. He was born in New York in 1890. His mother organized the family into a vaudeville act, which didn't become successful until Groucho began ad-libbing jokes and insults. In the forties and fifties, he hosted the wildly successful radio and TV quiz show You Bet Your Life. He died in 1977.

          "Let your hook be always cast;
      in the pool where you least expect it,
                there will be a fish."
                                                                         – Ovid

About Ovid

"Publius Ovidius Naso, the Roman poet known as Ovid, best known for the epic Metamorphoses, is considered one of the greatest poets of Latin literature. He was born in 43 B.C. in what is now Italy. He rose quickly in Roman government and was on track to become a senator when he chose to devote himself to poetry instead. His tale of Pyramus and Thisbe is the source for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Emperor Augustus exiled Ovid from Rome for unknown reasons in 8 A.D.; he died in exile in 17 A.D. "

"This above all, To Thine Own Self Be True."
                                        - William Shakespeare

"Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow."
- Swedish Proverb

    "We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
                                                 – Aristotle

"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that don't work."
- Thomas Alva Edison

"Only by acceptance of the past can you alter it."
                                                                  – T.S. Eliot

About T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot, the Nobel Prize–winning poet, is perhaps best known today for a light book of rhymes that became the Broadway hit Cats. He penned such weightier poems as "The Waste Land," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and "Four Quartets." His work is rich with deeply felt religious meditations, but he never wanted to be perceived as a religious poet. He was born in 1888 in St. Louis and made his adult home in England, where he worked as an editor at the publisher Faber & Faber. He died in 1965.

"It's never too late to be who you might have been."
                                                                        – George Eliot

About George Eliot

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, the Victorian author known for her psychologically astute novels set in small English towns. She was born on a farm in England in 1819 and wrote several acclaimed novels, including Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner. She lived with George Henry Lewes for several years, which was considered highly scandalous at the time. She died in 1880.

"The important thing is not to stop questioning.
   Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
                                                                       – Albert Einstein

About Albert Einstein

The brilliant physicist Albert Einstein became an international icon for his groundbreaking theory of relativity. He was born in Germany in 1879 and began his seminal work while at the Swiss Patent Office. He later fled the Nazi regime, moving to the United States to teach at Princeton. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize. He declined Israel's invitation to become its president, saying he lacked the necessary people skills. He died in 1955.

"Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway."
– Mary Kay Ash

About Mary Kay Ash

The bumblebee is the corporate symbol of Mary Kay Cosmetics, founded in 1963 by Mary Kay Ash and her son. Ash was born in Texas in 1918 and worked in direct sales until she retired in 1963 to write a book for women in business. Her book morphed into a plan, which became Mary Kay Cosmetics. Ash had an unconventional business approach: She believed in praise and encouragement, and awarded pink Cadillacs to her top salespeople. She died in 2001.

"You can have everything in life that you want if you will just help enough other people to get what they want."
                                                                 - Zig Ziglar

               "We don't stop playing because we grow old;
                   we grow old because we stop playing."
                                 - George Bernard Shaw

This is one of my favorite sayings:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
– Marcel Proust

About Marcel Proust

French writer Marcel Proust is renowned for his book In Search of Lost Time (formerly translated as Remembrance of Things Past), an autobiographical novel that Somerset Maugham called the greatest fiction to date. He was born near Paris in 1871. He had a severe asthma attack at age nine that nearly killed him; he remained in poor health much of his life. His bedroom was lined with cork for soundproofing; he wrote his novel at night and slept during the day. It took him 13 years to write the 3,200 page opus. He died in 1922.

 

"If you learn to appreciate more of what you already have, you will find yourself having more to appreciate."
Michael Angier

"Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist,
           but in the ability to start over."
                                                            – F. Scott Fitzgerald

About F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, who wrote as F. Scott Fitzgerald, is best known for his novel The Great Gatsby. He was born in St. Paul in 1896. Fear of mortality spurred him to write the novel This Side of Paradise while in the Army. It was rejected twice by Scribner's before they finally published it. His wife Zelda's schizophrenia was the basis for his novel Tender Is the Night. After they separated, he moved to Los Angeles and wrote screenplays for studio films. He died in 1940.

                It's not even Mother's Day. It's just Sunday
                 but this thought reminded me of Moms

   IF GOD HAD A REFRIGERATOR
 YOUR PICTURE WOULD BE ON IT

"When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this — you haven't."
                                                     – Thomas A. Edison

About Thomas A. Edison

Thomas Edison, the American inventor who made his early fortune with the stock ticker and the phonograph record, is credited with inventing the light bulb — although he simply improved upon the original idea by making the bulb burn longer. Edison was born in 1847 in Ohio. He was a dreamer in school; his teacher called him "addled," and his mother taught him at home. He used the money from his inventions to set up a lab with a number of employees; he held a record 1,093 patents in his name. He died in 1931.

HER QUOTE IS CORRECT FOR ME PERSONALLY AFTER MY EXPERIENCE OF "WALKING THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH" DURING 2001 - 2010.

"Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever."
                                                              – Isak Dinesen

About Isak Dinesen

Isak Dinesen was the pen name of Karen Blixen, the Danish author famously portrayed by Meryl Streep in the film of her best-selling memoir, Out of Africa. She was born near Copenhagen in 1885. In 1914, she and her new husband moved to Kenya to run a coffee plantation. She stayed on after divorcing her husband ten years later, living an unusually independent life. Her book of stories, Seven Gothic Tales, sold well, but Out of Africa made her a worldwide success. She died in 1962.

          Appreciate Small Beginnings

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."
                               -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken."
                                                               – Frank Herbert

About Frank Herbert

American author Frank Herbert is the author of Dune, the ecological science-fiction classic that has inspired cult-like devotion among fans. He was born in Tacoma in 1920. He lied about his age to get his first newspaper job in 1939. He was inspired to write Dune after researching an article about sand dunes in Oregon. The book took six years to write and was rejected by 23 publishers. It was a critical success for its exploration of issues of religion, politics, and survival. He died in 1986.

"A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work."
                                                                      – John Lubbock

About John Lubbock

John Lubbock, the multifaceted British banker, statesman, and scientist, was responsible for the institution of England's monthly Bank Holidays, sometimes referred to as St. Lubbock Days. He was born in 1834 in England. Growing up, he learned science from his father's friend Charles Darwin. He coined the terms Paleolithic and Neolithic to denote the different Stone Ages, and he wrote the well-regarded books Prehistoric Times and Ants, Bees, and Wasps. He died in 1913.

   "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
             Live the life you've imagined."
         Henry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau

"If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm,
  you'll never enjoy the sunshine."
                                                            – Morris West

About Morris West

Morris West, the popular Australian writer best known for religious thrillers including The Shoes of the Fisherman and The Devil's Advocate, spent 12 years in a Christian Brothers monastery but left before taking his final vows. He was born in Melbourne in 1916. He wrote his first book while serving in the South Pacific during World War II. After the war, he held such varied jobs as a radio soap-opera writer and Vatican correspondent for London's Daily Mail. He died in 1999.

"People become really quite remarkable
when they start thinking that they can do things.
When they believe in themselves,
they have the first secret of success."
- Norman Vincent Peale

"Within us all there are wells of thought and dynamos of energy which are not suspected until emergencies arise."
                                                                 – Thomas J. Watson

About Thomas J. Watson

American businessman Thomas J. Watson built IBM into a Fortune 500 company. He was born in rural New York in 1874. He sold sewing machines, musical instruments, and cash registers before becoming president of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording company, which merged with IBM in 1924. His paternalistic business style was a model for later Japanese management, and his motto, "THINK," became his company's slogan. Under his leadership, IBM funded the first computers. He died in 1956.

"Don't carry a grudge. While you're carrying a grudge,
               the other guy's out dancing."
                                                                    – Buddy Hackett

"The power of imagination makes us infinite."
                                                                    – John Muir

About John Muir

American naturalist John Muir is remembered as a passionate champion of the natural wonder of Yosemite; he was instrumental in turning the land into a national park. Born in Scotland in 1838, he immigrated with his family to Wisconsin in 1849. He dropped out of college to walk 1,000 miles from Indiana to Florida. After falling in love with Yosemite, he took a job herding sheep nearby. He developed the theory that the valley was created by glaciers, which is now accepted as fact. He died in 1914.

      

"Reading is important — read between the lines. Don't swallow everything."
                                                               – Gwendolyn Brooks

About Gwendolyn Brooks

In 1950, poet Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African-American awarded a Pulitzer Prize. She was born in 1917 in Kansas and grew up in Chicago. Her poetry often evokes the environment of Chicago's tough South Side neighborhood. In later years her work became more overtly political, though she continued to combine an understanding of traditional forms like sonnets and ballads with the rhythm of the blues and experimental verse. She died in 2000.

"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
                                                             --Christopher Robin to Winnie The Pooh

"Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life —
    learn some and think some and draw and
     paint and sing and dance and play and
              work every day some."
                                                                            – Robert Fulghum

About Robert Fulghum

American author Robert Fulghum is best known for his book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, which dominated the New York Times best-seller list for nearly two years. He was born in 1937 in Texas. In his youth he worked at odd jobs, including ditchdigger, ranch hand, and singing cowboy. After a short career at IBM, he became a Unitarian minister. He has written eight best-selling books of essays. His anecdotes of everyday life encapsulate his down-home philosophy. He lives in Seattle, Washington and on the Greek Island of Crete.

   Here on the last day of April 2011, I want to share with you that at least once a week I study other published writers to see how they do what they do. I hope to learn more about the art of book writing. 
   Some of what I read is just a publisher's propaganda. That's OK. Someday I'll have one of those spin doctors too. 
   Some of what I read is truly inspiring. That's usually what I'm looking for. 
   Most of it, however, reveals traits about other writers that I do not have. This month I discovered that the writers who create a new book every year have a copy machine with a remote. All I get with my remote is The Shopping Channel and Fox News. 
   I must call the local Social Welfare office next month. I am technically underprivileged and I need to get on some government program.

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
           -Ancient Chinese Slogan Confucius

    "To be yourself in a world that is
     constantly trying to make you 
              something else is
     the greatest accomplishment."
                                -EmersonEmerson

"It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him."
                                                         – John Steinbeck

About John Steinbeck

American author John Steinbeck is famous for his portrayals of workers struggling during the Great Depression in books such as the Dust Bowl novel The Grapes of Wrath and the novella Of Mice and Men. He was born in 1902 in California, the setting for many of his novels. Fascinated with marine biology, he joined an expedition in the Gulf of California, which led to the book The Sea of Cortez and an understanding, shown in his work, of the interdependence of living organisms. He died in 1968.

"To live is the rarest thing in the world.
Most people exist, that is all."
Oscar Wilde

"Inspiration follows aspiration."
                                         – Rabindranath Tagore

About Rabindranath Tagore

Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, a contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi, was the first Asian to garner a Nobel Prize, which he won in 1913 for literature. He was born in India in 1861, the youngest of 13 children. He wrote poetry, stories, travelogues, dramas, essays, and songs. In the West, he was seen as a mystical figure and his fame faded with time, but his legacy lives on in India, where his work has become part of the fabric of the culture. He died in 1941.

"If you must begin then go all the way, because if you begin and quit, the unfinished business you have left behind begins to haunt you all the time."
– Chögyam Trungpa

About Chögyam Trungpa

Tibetan Buddhist leader Chögyam Trungpa was instrumental in bringing Buddhism to the West. He was born in 1939 in Tibet and was recognized as the reincarnation of a Rinpoche (enlightened teacher) at 13 months old. After moving to England, he abandoned his monk garb: He wanted his Western students to perceive the Buddhist teachings without becoming distracted by exotic trappings. He founded Naropa University in Colorado and wrote several books. He died in 1987.

"Everything you want is just
outside your comfort zone."

"You can't stay in your corner of the Forest
waiting for others to come to you.
You have to go to them sometimes."
                         - Winnie The Pooh

"I am always doing that which I can not do,
in order that I may learn how to do it." 
-- Pablo Picasso

 

   
  

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all."
                                                           – Leo Rosten

About Leo Rosten

Leo Rosten, the Polish-American academic and author, is best known for his seminal The Joys of Yiddish, an amusing look at Yiddish words that have entered the American vernacular. Born in Lodz, Poland, in 1908, he immigrated to Chicago as a child. He wrote dozens of books, including a set of extremely popular humorous stories about Hyman Kaplan, a night-school student struggling with English. Under the pseudonym Leonard Q. Ross, he wrote mysteries and film noir screenplays. He died in 1997.

 All the statistics in the world can't
   measure the warmth of a smile.

"Passion, though a bad regulator,
is a powerful spring."
                                                 – Ralph Waldo Emerson

About Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson helped spark the transcendentalist movement with the essay Nature, which described his belief in the spiritual essence of humanity and the natural world. He was born in Boston in 1803. He was a Unitarian minister until he resigned in 1832 to become a philosopher and writer. He suffered the untimely deaths of many of his loved ones: three brothers, his first wife at age 20, and his eldest son at age five. Emerson died in 1882.

"We make a living by what we get,
  we make a life by what we give."
                                              – Sir Winston Churchill

"Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different."
                                                           – Katherine Mansfield

About Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield was the pen name of short story writer Katherine Beauchamp, who is best known for her collection The Garden Party. Born in New Zealand in 1888, she moved to England as a young woman and became friends with writers such as Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence. Her writing style was influenced by Anton Chekhov; like him, she focused on intimate moments that revealed character. She in turn influenced a generation of short story writers. She died in 1923 of tuberculosis.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."
                                                                   – Helen Keller

"Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit."
                                                                    – e. e. cummings

About e. e. cummings

The writer who became known as e. e. cummings was an experimental poet whose idiosyncratic typography complements the music of his poetry; he published more than 900 poems, two novels, and four plays. He was also an accomplished painter. He was born in Massachusetts in 1894 and entered the ambulance corps in World War I but ended up in a detention camp after expressing his pacifist views. He died in 1962. "In Just-" was his most famous poem.

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
- T.S. Eliot

Don't ever be afraid to
admit you were wrong.
It's like saying you're
wiser today than you
were yesterday.

"I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often."

"No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."
                                  – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself."
– Isak Dinesen

About Isak Dinesen

Isak Dinesen was the pen name of Karen Blixen, the Danish author famously portrayed by Meryl Streep in the film of her best-selling memoir, Out of Africa. She was born near Copenhagen in 1885. In 1914, she and her new husband moved to Kenya to run a coffee plantation. She stayed on after divorcing her husband ten years later, living an unusually independent life. Her book of stories, Seven Gothic Tales, sold well, but Out of Africa made her a worldwide success. She died in 1962.

"The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going."
– David Starr Jordan

About David Starr Jordan

David Starr Jordan, a scientist, educator, author, and ichthyologist, was best known for his work as a peace activist. He was the president of Indiana University from 1885 until 1891, when he became the first president of Stanford University. He coauthored The Fishes of North and Middle America and served on international commissions for fisheries. Later in his career, Jordan became involved in the quest for international peace and served as director of the World Peace Foundation from 1910 to 1914. He died in 1931.

"Don't let other people tell you what you want."
                                                           – Pat Riley

About Pat Riley

Legendary American sports coach Pat Riley, the three-time NBA Coach of the Year, was drafted by both NBA and NFL teams when he graduated from college. He was born in 1945 in New York. He played with the LA Lakers on their championship-winning 1972 team and retired in 1976, becoming an assistant coach to the same team in 1980. The 1981–82 season began badly, so management fired his boss and promoted Riley, who took the Lakers to the first of their four championships under his guidance. In 1995, Riley resigned from the Knicks and became the head coach of the Miami Heat, advancing the team to the finals for the first time in francise history. He stepped down as head coach in 2008, but still serves as President of the team.

Don't be afraid to fail.
  Be afraid not to try.
 

We each need to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly."
                                       By Shakti Gawain

About Shakti Gawain

American New Age author Shakti Gawain was born in 1948. Raised by atheists who taught her to question everything, she went through an existential crisis after a romantic breakup, which led her on a pilgrimage to India. Her experiences inspired the book Creative Visualization, which became an international best seller. She has been featured in Time magazine and has appeared on such shows as Oprah, Good Morning Americav and The Larry King Show. She currently lives in California with her husband Jim Burns.

With Respect & Gratitude,
                Tom
       http://aronbestsellers.com

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
                                 – Winston Churchill

About Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Churchill was an extraordinary British prime minister; he laid the groundwork for welfare in England, helped set the boundaries in the Middle East, became a symbol of the resistance against the Nazis in Europe, and was a central force in the Allied victory in World War II. He was born in 1874 near Oxford. He was known for his courage, his stubbornness, and his powerful personality. He was also an accomplished painter and writer. He died in 1965.

"The critical ingredient is getting off your butt
and doing something. It's as simple as that. A
lot of people have ideas, but there are few
who decide to do something about them now.
Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The
true entrepreneur is a doer."
- Nolan Bushnell
                

 

"If one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better."
                                                                    – Jane Austen

About Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775-1817), the British writer whose sparkling, socially incisive novels remain extremely popular two centuries after her death, is best known for Pride and Prejudice, which she called her "own darling child." She started writing solely for her own family, and her novels, including Sense and Sensibility and Emma, were initially published anonymously (or "By a Lady"). Nevertheless, she won fame later in life, and she earned the high honor of burial in Winchester Cathedral after her death in 1817 at age 41.

"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will."
                  – George Bernard Shaw

About George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw, the witty British playwright best known for Arms and the Man and Pygmalion, is the only person to win both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award. He was born in Dublin in 1856 but moved to London in the 1870s to begin his literary career. He wrote five novels, all rejected, before becoming a music critic; he began writing plays after a stint as drama critic. He was an outspoken Democratic Socialist; his plays include highly political prefaces. He died in 1950.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled,
but a fire to be kindled."
                                                               Plutarch

About Plutarch

Plutarch, the Greek historian who penned more than 46 anecdote-laced biographies of famous Greek and Roman figures in his Parallel Lives series of books, was more interested in exploring the influence of character on a man's personal destiny than in writing dry histories. He was born in Greece during Roman rule, most likely in the year 46. He traveled extensively through the Roman Empire, finally returning home to become a priest of Apollo at the Oracle of Delphi. He died in the year 120.

"Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead."
                                 – Louisa May Alcott

About Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott, the beloved American author, is best known for her semiautobiographical novel, Little Women, which was made into a movie five different times. Born in 1832 near Philadelphia, she grew up in Massachusetts. Her family lived in the genteel poverty depicted in her fiction. She wrote lurid stories anonymously to bring in money but gained fame under her own name with young adult novels, which held readers with their warm characterizations and simple, engaging style. She died in 1888.

"Once the 'what' is decided, the 'how' always follows. We must not make the 'how' an excuse for not facing and accepting the 'what.'"
                                                                             – Pearl S. Buck

About Pearl S. Buck

Prolific American author Pearl S. Buck is best known for her 1931 novel, The Good Earth, which depicted peasant life in China; the book, published by the John Day Company, won the Pulitzer Prize. She was born in West Virginia in 1892, but her missionary parents raised her in China. She and her first husband lived in China until 1934, when they had to flee the political strife. She later divorced and married John Day's publisher, Richard Walsh, in 1935. In 1938, she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature. By the time of her death in 1973, she had published over 70 books, including collections of stories, poetry, and children's literature.

   Trust your hunches. They're usually
based on facts filed away just below
the conscious level.

"I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character."
                                                             – Theodore Roosevelt

About Theodore Roosevelt

Known both for his larger-than-life personality and his many achievements, Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest US president at age 42. He was born in 1858 in New York. He led the Rough Riders, a motley volunteer cavalry, to victory in the battle of San Juan Hill. As the "Trust Buster" president, he instigated some 40 lawsuits to break up monopolies. An ardent conservationist, he put 230 million acres under federal protection. The Panama Canal was begun under Roosevelt. He died in 1919.

"If you judge people,
you have no time to love them."

- Mother Teresa

"A good scare is usually worth more
      to a man than good advice."

 "People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things. 
 Sir Edmund Hillary
(First Ascent Mt. Everest)

 

 

        This worked when I climbed Longs Peak. It worked when I began law studies. It works for me now when I write a novel.
          Finally I applied it to my healing from a near fatal medical injury and, yep, it still works.

                      YARD BY YARD
                    The Going Is Hard
                        INCH BY INCH
                         It's A Cinch!

"If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can't buy."
- Unknown Author

"Become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid."
                                                    – Lady Bird Johnson

About Lady Bird Johnson

Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson, the wife of President Lyndon Johnson, is known for her concern for the environment. She was born in Texas in 1912. Johnson asked her to marry him seven weeks after they met. She supported his career by keeping his congressional office running after his heart attack, stumping for Democratic candidates, and visiting 33 countries as his emissary. She founded the Wildflower Research Center and worked to pass the Highway Beautification Act. She lived in Texas until her death in 2007.

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."

"Action is the antidote to despair."
                                                  – Joan Baez