Studies indicate that the one quality all successful people have is persistence. They're willing to spend more time accomplishing a task and to persevere in the face of many difficult odds. There's a very positive relationship between people's ability to accomplish any task and the time they're willing to spend on it.

Those who are the most happy appear to know it the least; happiness is something that for the most part seems to mainly consist in not knowing it.

The greatest happiness is family happiness.

Strong families use the word "we" a lot, but "I" is never forgotten. Family members know they have the freedom to go off on their own, even if the direction is one that "we" have never followed before. The family message is, "We're behind you, so you can be you."

If you change nothing, nothing changes.

Nothing brings families together faster than forgiveness. That should make it Step No. 1, but most of us find forgiving hard. We associate it with weakness and losing when, actually, the reverse is true. When you forgive, you gain strength and come out a winner. You break free of control by the other person's actions.

A woman should never underestimate the power of the child in the man. Sometimes the child seems to be in the driver's seat at the very moment when all a man's adult judgment and insight is needed.