“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.”

“When I start questioning my beauty and my self-construction, when I start questioning the world and my position and participation in it, when I start questioning my abilities and my dreams, when I start to question my potential and my future I try to focus on when my life was innocent and I try to stay there in that light at least for a little while.”

“What I didn't understand, all those years when I was waiting for my life to start, was that it had already started. I was already living it! Those were the most important years, and I didn't even know it.”

“I didn't know," I start truthfully, "that it was the hard way when I started on it.”

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”

“…I started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that’s just the way it came out.”