We've got so much in this life that all we know how to do is want more. So we concentrate on the wrong things-things we can see-as being the measure of a person. We think if we win something big or buy something snazzy it'll make us more than we are. Our hearts know that's not true, but the eyes are powerful.

It was February sixth: eight days until Valentine's Day. I was dateless, as usual, deep in the vice grip of unrequited love. It was bad enough not having a boyfriend for New Year's Eve. Now I had to cope with Valentine datelessness, feeling consummate social pressure from every retailer in America who stuck hearts and cupids in their windows by January second to rub it in.

You don't know which way a thing will come at you, but you need to welcome it with your whole heart which ever way it arrives.

Teenagers are like bees at night, I think. We don't like waking up and we don't always get with the program immediately, but once we figure out our mission, we'll see it through.

When the going gets tough, the tough get a librarian.

New places always help us look at life differently

And we learned that you don't have to be famous or rich or physically healthy to be a leader. You just have to try to be a true person. We learned that helping other people brings out the good in everybody.