Life is about making your own happiness - and living by your own rules.

Beauty is not skin-deep; it can be a means of self-affirmation, a true indicator of personality and confidence.

Adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It's part of our life.

Everyone is really afraid of getting out there and not being good. That's the challenge: To be afraid and know people are staring at you and know you might not do all that well, but you do it anyway. What singles out the successful athlete from the ones who never make it past a plateau, it that successful athletes risk failure, even though they are terrified.

Giving up is conceding that things will never get better, and that is just not true. Ups and downs are a constant in life, and I've been belted into that roller coaster a thousand times.

The Pentagon isn't a place that champions individuality and innovation.

If you watch any John Hughes film of the eighties, that was my childhood experience.