“I know I need to exercise. For some people, exercise is like breathing; for others, like me, it takes effort.”

You can’t name an institution that doesn’t depend on volunteers.

In our society leaving baby with Daddy is just one step above leaving the kids to be raised by wolves or apes.

If somehow every volunteer vanished tomorrow, so much of this country would come to a standstill: schools, hospitals and libraries.

When Courtney’s mother and I first separated I tried to be Disney Dad, showering her with gifts, trips and then I snapped out of it.

To me, there is no difference between ‘natural’ and ‘adopted.’ .

In the pregnancy process I have come to realize how much of the burden is on the female partner. She’s got a construction zone going on in her belly.

I was just thrilled to get the gig to begin with. Ten years later to still have it is not only thrilling but also somewhat of a puzzlement.

I have been blessed with working with the best in the business.

I was the oldest of six, and three of my siblings were adopted.

Watching the scenes out of New Orleans, if you turn down the sound it could be the Sudan or any Third World country. But it’s not. it’s the United States of America.

Mom and Dad even took in foster children. ‘There are no limits to how much you can love,’ Dad always said.

If I was having a bad day, eating was like self-medicating. But if you abuse food, you still have to use that substance that you abuse every day.

My first college roommate greeted me with a shocked silence followed by, ‘So. . .you’re black.

I don’t make plans, because life is short and unpredictable – much like the weather!

You don’t have to try to impress your kids. If they’re not getting what they need from you, they will let you know.

We already had an adopted daughter, 10-year-old Courtney, from my previous marriage.

There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy.

Fat people who want to reduce should take their exercise on an empty stomach and sit down to their food out of breath…. Thin people who want to get fat should do exactly the opposite and never take exercise on an empty stomach.

But only a brief moment is granted to the brave one breath or two, whose wage is the long nights of the grave.

With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you’re connected to the sea.

How great is the mystery of the first cells which were one day animated by the breath of our souls! How impossible to decipher the welding of successive influences in which we are forever incorporated! In each one of us, through matter, the whole history of the world is in part reflected.

Truly to sing, that is a different breath.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

You want to set this one down so you can take a breath, and keep reading–all at the same time.