MY FAVORITE QUOTES

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

- Cicero

"The heart has reasons the brain knows nothing of."

- Blaise Pascal

"Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself
makes you fearless."

- Lao Tzu

"You never know how strong you are
until being strong is your only choice."

- Christina Cuomo

"There is no love, there are only proofs of love."

- Pierre Reverdy

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."

- Samuel Johnson

"The secret of happiness is something to do."

- John Burroughs

"Success is a lousy teacher.
It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."

- Bill Gates

"Tell, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn."

- Benjamin Franklin

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

- Aristotle

"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible."

- Tony Robbins

"There is always a barrier between me and someone who does not like dogs."

- Ellen Glasgow

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

- Maya Angelou

"Three o'clock is always too late, or too early, for anything you want to do."

- Jean-Paul Sartre

"She wasn't doing a thing that I could see except standing there, leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."

- J.D. Salinger

"Every charitable act is a step toward heaven."

- Unknown

"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."

- Henry Ward Beecher

"I have simply tried to do what seemed best each day,
as each day came."

- Abe Lincoln

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection,
we can catch excellence."

- Vince Lombardi

"Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost."

- William Ellery Channing

"I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen."

- Frank Lloyd Wright

"Cruel, but composed and bland, dumb, inscrutable and grand. So Tiberius might have sat, had Tiberius been a cat."

- Matthew Arnold

"The hardest thing for me is the sense of impermanence.
All passes; nothing returns."

- Ellen Glasgow

"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Tommy Joe, don't take any wooden nickels."

- Dolly Hale (my Mom)

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

- Albert Einstein

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning how to dance in the rain."

- Vivian Greene

"As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other is for helping others."

- Audrey Hepburn

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."

- Dolly Parton

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

- Chinese Proverb

"An unexamined life is not worth living."

- Socrates

"Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is."

- Vince Lombardi

"Good friends are like stars, you don't always see them, but you know they are there."

- Christy Evans

"You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore."

- Christopher Columbus

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."

- Henry Ford

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why."

- Mark Twain

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

- Anais Nin

"There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing."

- Aristotle

"Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart."

- Ancient Indian Proverb

"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare."

- Mark Twain

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."

- Mark Twain

"How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly."

- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

- Lewis Carrol

"One of the most adventurous things left us is to go to bed. For no one can lay a hand on our dreams."

- E.V. Lucas

"A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer."

- Unknown

"It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it."

- Albert Einstein

"The years teach me much which the days never knew."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness."

- Unknown

"Forget injuries; never forget kindness."

- Confucius

"Success is going from failure without losing your enthusiasm."

- Winston Churchill

"When they call the roll in the Senate, they don't know whether to answer "present' or "not guilty."

- Theodore Roosevelt (still true today)

"My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers."

- Jimmy Carter

"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."

- Babe Ruth

"Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions."

- Albert Einstein

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."

- Henry David Thoreau

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much."

- Jim Rohn

"If you aren't going all the way, why go at all?"

- Joe Namath

"You can't pour from an empty cup."

- Robin Miget

"I find the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

- Thomas Jefferson

"You've got to try your luck at least once a day because you could be going around lucky all day and not even know it."

- Jimmy Dean

"The secret to a long and happy marriage is not finding someone you can live with for 50 years. It's finding someone you can't live without."

- Frank Caprio

"Truth isn't always easy to find or to face. "

- George T. Conway III

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts."

- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

"Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

- Dale Carnegie

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

- Cicero

"The heart has reasons the brain knows nothing of."

- Blaise Pascal

"Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself makes you fearless."

- Lao Tzu

"You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice."

- Christina Cuomo

"There is no love, there are only proofs of love."

- Pierre Reverdy

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."

- Samuel Johnson

"The secret of happiness is something to do."

- John Burroughs

"Success is a lousy teacher.
It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."

- Bill Gates

"Tell, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn."

- Benjamin Franklin

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

- Aristotle

"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible."

- Tony Robbins

"There is always a barrier between me and someone who does not like dogs."

- Ellen Glasgow

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

- Maya Angelou

"Three o'clock is always too late, or too early, for anything you want to do."

- Jean-Paul Sartre

"She wasn't doing a thing that I could see except standing there, leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."

-J.D. Salinger

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The Bike… by JoAnn

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A smiley face wearing a cowboy hat and bandana.

AS MY WORLD TURNS

My Brush with Fame

I have never been around anyone famous, not that I haven’t been around anyone important, just that they were not known by many people.

However, I had a brief brush with fame. Growing up in the mountains of southwest Virginia, I found high school football and basketball to be equivalent to Major League Baseball or the National Football League. Our Friday night football games were jam-packed with residents from all over Buchanan County.

Until the start of my junior year of high school, I had friends, but few, and the girls mostly ignored me. That football season, I moved up from the JV team and led the varsity team in points scored (64). My popularity increased. The following senior year, I led again with 103 points and made the All-County team. The attention I garnered instilled the feeling that the world was my oyster and all I had to do was crack it. I will always cherish that feeling of confidence and determination.

Our games were broadcast every Friday night on our local radio station (WNRG), and the recording was played over the air again the next morning for everyone to enjoy. I always listened to that broadcast to see how many times my name was called, as did every member of our team. Oddly, I was more proud of my defensive skills than my offensive feats. Great success is hard for a teenage boy to handle!

I had gone from someone who others thought was perhaps generic to what felt like to me, superstardom! Girls that previously ignored me now went out of their way to engage me in conversation. The non-football guys wanted to be my best friends and were always hanging around, trying to make conversation. Adults from all over our county would see me on the streets of Grundy, our only town, and stop to make conversation.

I graduated high school in 1959, joined the US Air Force, and fame disappeared, never to return. I never craved its return and didn’t miss it. I always knew it was temporary, even at that young age. Its only value was that it showed a kid, who felt his only value in life was to do chores and stay out of the way, he was important.

To me, there is no better feeling than being loved and respected. As a teenager, that was what I lacked in life, and football handed me that on a silver platter. The great college basketball coach, Bobby Knight, said, “The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare." Unintentionally, I had prepared myself for my brief brush with fame with the discipline I gained under my father’s tutelage. For that, I am forever grateful.

             

~ Tommy ~

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