I got to live out my 11-year-old fantasies - I got to go on stage with Green Day. Billie Joe called my name from the stage. 'Dookie' was the first album I ever bought. I covered the whole of 'Nimrod' and he'd heard it. That was like the 11-year-old g...
At present, the planet earth populace is over 7.2 billion living souls. For this reason, we don't essentially need only individuals we know, or people within our arms reach, as we strive towards wholeness. Love, help and opportunities, are endless, w...
A rugged-looking fellow with long, curly black hair loosened his jaw by repeating the phrase, “red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather.” I wondered if that was a secret exercise actors did before kissing scenes [Cram, Cusi, "‘O...
I met people when we lived down in Raleigh who'd ask where I grew up, and I'd say about two hours west of Asheville, and they'd say they didn't know there was any North Carolina two hours west of Asheville. It was in many ways an isolated place.
People always want you to look pretty. I would like to live in the Midwest in a small town and never put makeup on. But they won't let you do that. Once I went through a period when I did do that, wore no makeup, wore my hair any which way, and peopl...
I had real plans for my next decade and felt I'd worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read - if not indeed write - the obituaries of elderly villains like Hen...
When I lived in Nashville, Tanya Tucker and people like that were coming up, and I'm sure that Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette were going, 'What's that noise? That's not country.' It's always been this battle where whoever comes up behind the reigning...
Carol Burnett probably had the biggest influence on me as kid. Although I was very young and watched her a lot in reruns, I was mesmerized by the way she transformed, by her physical comedy and the rolling laughter from the live studio audience. I lo...
I don't want to live in the kind of world where we don't look out for each other. Not just the people that are close to us, but anybody who needs a helping hand. I cant change the way anybody else thinks, or what they choose to do, but I can do my bi...
There’s something of a restorative quality about spring, where something whispers wild rumors of new beginnings arising from the seemingly dead seeds in our lives. There’s something almost cruel about it all, as if there might be some sort of tru...
We make time for what we truly value. We build habits and routines around the things that really matter to us. This is an important principle to understand as we seek to build our lives around the gospel. Do you want a cross centered life? A cross ce...
When I first lived in a model apartment... It was two bunk beds to a room, and the bathroom was constantly in use. I was bringing in Lucky Charms cereal, and one day an agent put a stop to that. She said, 'You're making all the girls fat.' They took ...
My first year on 'SNL', I made $90,000 dollars. And I bought a red Corvette for $45,000 dollars. I'm thinking, 'I've got 45 grand left!' Taxes didn't even come into my equation. At the end of the first year of making 90 grand I was 25, 30 in the hole...
Because I know if I sit down and start to write out how it feels…. it all becomes too real… the pain becomes too much. But that's the weird part because I feel so empty, like there no longer is a heart living where there used to be one, so why am...
I believe it is the duty of each of us to act as if the fate of the world depended on him. Admittedly, one man by himself cannot do the job. However, one man can make a difference. We must live for the future of the human race, and not for our own co...
Unlike many graduate fellowships, the Rhodes seeks leaders who will 'fight the world's fight.' They must be more than mere bookworms. We are looking for students who wonder, students who are reading widely, students of passion who are driven to make ...
Homo economicus was surreptitiously taken as the emblem and analogue for all living beings. A mechanistic anthropomorphism has gained currency. Bacteria are imagined to mimic "economic" behavior and to engage in internecine competition for the scarce...
I challenge you today to go past fear, doubt, worry and the darkness, and Turn On your Light, Allow the Spark to Light your candle and when you have done so and basked in the feeling of being truly alive and have filled your cup, share with another w...
What interests me, personally, is work which in some way, speaks the truth to power…I don’t think we speak the truth to power for power’s ear, but for the ear and the imagination of future generations, who would seek to live in a world free fro...
On one show before a live audience, I had to look out the door and call for Will Smith to come in. The audience couldn't see him, but there he was with his naked butt staring me in the face. I didn't normally hang out with twenty-something practical ...
When I realized I wanted to do more writing and less traveling around the world teaching live seminars, I decided to write the first 'Chicken Soup for the Soul(R)' book. I knew I wanted to have 100 stories in the book, so I wrote or edited two storie...
