“Cliché: "The MBA changed my life."What it really means: "A fantastic career, a great social life and a healthy bank balance...three of the things I had before I started the program.”

“Right now my life has an expiration date determined by my bank balance. Can I find something before my time is up?”

“PrettyThat's what I am, I guess.I mean, people have been tellingme that's what I am sinceI was two. Maybe younger. Prettyas a picture. (Who wantsto be a cliché?) Pretty asan angel. (Can you see them?)Pretty as a butterfly. (But isn'tthat really just a glam bug?)Cliché, invisible, or insectlike,I grew up knowing I waspretty and believing everything goodabout me had to do with howI looked. The mirror was my bestfriend. Until it started telling me I wasn't really pretty enough.”

“I started to discover the meaning of happiness when I started to discover--and practice--the art of acceptance. When I started to accept life for what it was and I started to accept whatever situation I was in as the way things were, I started to see that my happiness depended on my own attitude. When I started focusing on getting the most out of my life the way it was rather than trying to turn it into what I thought it should be, I started to realize that I was, indeed, becoming a much happier person.”

“You [I] have control over three things – what you [I] think what you [I] say, and how you [I] behave. To make a change in your [my] life, you [I] must recognize that these gifts are the most powerful tools you [I] possess in shaping the form of your [my] life.”

“This was the book I read over and over. I really felt so in tune with them- I knew all the dates of their lives, what they had been doing, whre they had been. They were always my heroes, creating something fantastic against all odds, and against their real life.”