Heart Book Series

Quotations on Success

Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself. You may be surprised at how easily this happens. Your doubts are not as powerful as your desires, unless you make them so.  
—Marcia Wieder

There are two ways of meeting difficulties; you alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself to meet them.
—Phyllis Bottome

Life isn’t about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.
—George Bernard Shaw

When the vision on the inside becomes more compelling and powerful than what is observed on the outside, then the universe is at your command.
—James Arthur Ray

A man’s fortune must first be changed from within.
—Chinese Proverb

Success comes from taking the initiative and following up… persisting… eloquently expressing the depth of your love. What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life?
—Anthony Robbins

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
—Eric Hoffer

When we can begin to take our failures seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.
—Katherine Mansfield

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
—Winston Churchill

Your self image is your pattern!
Every thought has an activity visualized.
Every activity belongs to a pattern.
You identify with your pattern or thought.
Your patterns leads your life.
—J G Gallimore

Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you;
Be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.
—W. Clement Stone

If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it, even if I did not have the ability in the beginning.
—Mahatma Gandhi

It’s the little things you do that can make a big difference. What are you attempting to accomplish? What little thing can you do today that will make you more effective? You are probably only one step away from greatness.
—Bob Proctor, The Secret

Listen to that voice inside you that says you can accomplish anything. Trust that feeling that tells you, you can achieve all that you hope for. Believe that everything you want is waiting for you. Hold on to the knowledge that nothing is impossible. Remember that each person who has ever achieved a goal started out with only a dream.
—Jason Blume 

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.
—Art Linkletter

Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities.
Seize common occasions and make them great.
—Orison Swett Marden

Make each day useful and cheerful and prove that you know the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be happy, old age without regret and life a beautiful success.
—Louisa May Alcott

Most successful people begin with two beliefs:
the future can be better than the present,
and I have the power to make it so.
—David Brooks

Don’t ask what the world needs.
Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
—Howard Thurman

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.
—John D. Rockefeller

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.
—Sir Winston Churchill

Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can — there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.
—Sarah Caldwell

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
—Lewis L. Dunnington

A must see!

Last night, I took my dear closest girlfriends out to see MAMMA MIA! starring Meryl Streep. I figured it would be fun, since it’s posted as a Romantic Comedy Musical… It was FUN-tastic! We were laughing so hard at times we were crying! My ribs ached!

Great sound track – set to ABBA’s great music. Timeless songs such as Dancing Queen, I Have a Dream, Voulez-Vous, and Take a Chance on Me, are ingeniously woven into an enchanting tale of love, laughter and friendship. On the eve of her wedding, a daughter’s quest to discover the identity of her father brings 3 men from her mother’s past back to the Greek island paradise they last visited 20 years ago.

The scenery spectacular and the story was delightful. Since it takes place on a Greek isle, we walked over for gyros afterward. I slept so well last night, and was laughing in my dreams!

There were times the audience broke out in spontaneous applause celebrating the power and strength of women! And talk about the women… in the audience… of all ages… loving this show!  I think we forgot it was only a movie… It was more like we got caught-up in it – as part of the sisterhood.

Pierce Brosnan even has a singing debut! Handsome as ever. And a stretch in character for  “James Bond.”

SEE the movie trailer here: http://mammamiamovie.com/

-Sheryl Roush

What Being a Mother Means to Me…
from Celebrities on Oprah

"I guess I didn’t realize that you could really just like your children as much as your friends, you know? I just enjoy interacting with them," Oscar® winner Julia Roberts says. "I’m interested in their point of view." Since becoming a mother, Julia says she’s changed. "I definitely feel that I’ve expanded as a human being," she says. "I have more empathy and more compassion, I think, because I feel so blessed on a level that I can’t even wrap my mind around really."

Emmy-winning actress Sarah Jessica Parker loves to take time to smell the roses with her son, James Wilke, and her husband, actor Matthew Broderick. "It’s the happiest time of my life, to walk through our city and be with my son and have him approach school excited," she says. When asked if Sarah Jessica plans on having more babies, she answers with a resounding "yes!" "When James Wilke came out … I said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s a boy!’ The first thing I said after that was, ‘I can’t wait to do this again!’"

"There are good days and bad days [when you’re a mother]," Annette Bening says. "I think every parent feels that. Some days, you feel that you’re doing it the way you want to do it, and other days, you don’t have as much patience." As the youngest of four, Annette says she always wanted children. "That came first for me," she says. "When I envisioned acting and being a mom, I had a lot of worries that it would be really a hard thing to do together. But, I’ve found over the years, that I’m so fortunate because I can take such large amounts of time when I’m not shooting anything, and I can really be there for my kids."

Since the early 1970s, Grammy®, Oscar® and Golden Globe® winner Carly Simon has been baring her soul in one heartfelt hit after another. These days, Carly says she chooses to perform with her children, Sally and Ben, whenever possible. "Never is it better than with them. They are the heart and soul of my life," she says.

"When I was a young actress we dealt with the legacy of Katherine Hepburn who said famously, ‘You can do one or the other. You can’t do both,’" Meryl Streep says. "It came to my mind when I was a young actress. When I found out I was pregnant, I thought, ‘Now I’ll never be like Katherine Hepburn!’ Well, no. But I have a perfectly good life. And thank God I have my children. My God, it’s everything. But it’s not without compromise and it’s not without mess…but I like mess."

"I’m strict about manners," says Oscar® winner Emma Thompson about raising her children. "I think that kids have a horrible time [with other people] if they have bad manners. … The one thing you’ve got to be prepared to do as a parent is not to be liked from time to time."

"I think what surprised me the most about [motherhood], as sentimental as it sounds, is how much I love her," says Gwyneth Paltrow about her daughter, Apple. "I mean, I just can’t believe it. It’s like a whole new dimension in emotion that I’ve never experienced. It’s crazy."

"I lifted up my son with love and delight after feeding him, and he proceeded to vomit into my mouth," says Debra Messing about her son, Roman. "I thought it was hilarious. I love him so much that I would like to put his drool in a bottle and wear it as perfume."

"I spent my life being told I have these fantastic childbearing hips, so I breezed through this pregnancy, merrily eating and gaining 70 pounds, and came to the birth just very excited and really looking forward to it," says Kate Winslet about her pregnancy with daughter, Mia. "I never thought about a Cesarean section. It just didn’t occur to me. After 37 hours, they came and said, ‘We’re going to have to induce you.’ And even that didn’t work! And then the C-section."

"In my mind…[if] you wake up healthy, and you wake up happy, and your family’s safe and happy and healthy, then everything else pales in comparison," says Faith Hill about life with husband Tim McGraw and their three daughters, Gracie, Maggie and Audrey.

"Rene-Charles is a miracle baby for us. It’s a dream come true in many ways. I’ll never be the same person anymore. As a human being, as a singer, it changed my life completely," Celine Dion says. "I think that children are holding the secret of life. When you’re around children, they are everything."

"People ask me what’s the best thing you’ve ever done, the hardest thing you’ve ever done? The answer is the same: It’s being Chelsea’s mom," says Senator Hillary Clinton. "When Bill started running for the White House, my only condition was that we do whatever we could to protect her, because it’s a very hard life for anybody who goes into it. I kept saying ‘no and no and no’, and people finally realized that I meant it—and they have given her a chance to be who she is today. I’m most proud of the fact that she is an independent person with a loving heart. She’s a wonderful young woman. I’m very grateful for that."

I can’t speak for how children survive divorce because I didn’t come from a divorced home," says Trisha Yearwood about becoming a stepmother to husband Garth Brooks‘ children. "My job is to make that as good a situation as it can possibly be so that they have one more person in their life that’s a cheerleader for them, and that wants them to do well."

I do treasure [motherhood] the most," says Jada Pinkett Smith. "It’s the most challenging job I have. It’s very difficult. Especially now raising children because they’re bombarded with so much information. … It’s about starting with planting those little seeds of self-esteem. We need to start giving our young girls affirming messages. That’s what my grandmother did for me. She would always tell me, ‘Jada, you can do whatever.’"

"I’m crazy about them and they know it," says Lisa Marie Presley about her children. "And then having that, versus being their friend—as well as [being their] mother. That’s the fence you walk, which is important because you can’t go too much on one side or the other."

At age 41, Oscar®-winning actress Halle Berry announced she was having a baby with her boyfriend, Canadian model Gabriel Aubry. "I’m sort of superstitious, so I saved all of the negative tests in a drawer," she says. "Don’t ask! I don’t know why, but I did. … After about 35 tests, we finally got a positive test." Halle gave birth to a little girl, Nahla, on March 17, 2008. "Well, there’s just one right now," she says. "But we’re hoping right after this one to do it again."

"I think the best thing that my husband and I did is we had dinner with [our daughter] every single night of her life," Bette Midler says about her look-alike daughter, Sophie.