As any jazz musician knows, it takes flexibility and adaptability for improvisation to create beauty.

Appreciation is a powerful tool to shift perspective. Finding something to appreciate during a difficult situation quickly moves the perspective to the big picture from the little picture.

Learning to "just say no" to emotional reactions isn't repression. Saying no means not engaging the frustration, anger, judgment, or blame. Without engagement, you won't have anything to repress.

Physiologically, it simply doesn't matter whether your anger is justified or not. The body doesn't make moral judgements about feelings; it just responds.

Our true identity is to love without fear and insecurity. Our higher potential finds us when we set our course in that direction. The power of love and compassion transforms insecurity.

Appreciation and gratitude are a must if you choose to become the architect of increased happiness and your own fulfillment.

Appreciation is like looking through a wide-angle lens that lets you see the entire forest, not just the one tree limb you walked up on.

Stress is an unstranformed opportunity for empowerment.

How you choose to respond each moment to the movie of life determines how you see the next frame, and the next, and eventually how you feel when the movie ends.

The greatest gift a parent can give a child during all the ups and downs of life is love.

An aware parent loves all children he or she interacts with - for you are a caretaker for those moments in time.

Maybe this was how you stayed sane in wartime: a handful of noble deeds amid the chaos.

You have to understand something about girls, Mick. You see 'em in the winner's circle, but you'll never find horseshit on their shoes.

Books can break a man open, even ones about a panda, maybe especially so.

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things, ...

If God had wanted us to play football in the sky, He'd have put grass up there.

A residual sea of symbols which is shared by all mankind, usually accessed through dreams or altered states, and from which cultures draw images on which to found their religions.

Closing Guantanamo Bay is not a military solution. The closing of that prison, which I support, I supported it when I was in the Senate, requires more than just a military dimension.

My dad is one of the funniest people I know. He's the sort of man who can make you laugh just by reading out of a telephone directory... He's a spastic.

If you happened to be born on third base, you didn't rub it in the face of the guy who wasn't even born in the stadium. Self-interest was generally checked at the door with your coat and hat.

Once you start laughing, you start healing.