There's nothing so comforting as a good hug, a warm blanket, and a mug of something hot that smells really good.

One of the things I cherish most is my scrap paper - it's great for sudden midnight ideas, scribbling, venting, journal entries, and at worst, to tear up when I'm down.

I'll never give up my teddy bear. He's one of the few lasting things of my childhood.

Keep your hair out of your face - people can see you better.

Exercise, reading, watching tv, anything can be meditation if you take it slow and do it with all you've got.

All sounds are the same. Just vibrations, just the dance of the air, dance of atoms, the Cosmic dance of the universe that moves us all, living or not.

What is it about gentle baby blue that smoothes wrinkles and wipes away worries?

I would like to surround myself with young children and babies. They smile, and their only worry is how long to cry until someone pities them and rocks them to sleep.

Children on the playground push each other. One falls, cries a minute, then dries his tears with the backs of his hands, dusts the mud off his bottom, and smiles and runs and plays with his friends again.

When a cat rubs his head against you and purrs, he is giving you his love all for only a backscratch and a bowl of cat food.

I could lie on my back and stare at the ceiling all day if only there were no clouds or stars to see.

I get goosebumps when it's cold, and they pop up all over my skin when I step into a hot shower, when I crawl under the sheets, when they tell me ghost stories, and when a friend gives me the greatest thing - a genuine smile.

Hi and how are you mean so little when we say them and hear them. If I answered "Horrible!" would you necessarily make the time to stop and listen?

I most cherish the teachers who gave me a well-earned pat on the back, and the ones who told me when to watch mine.

I want to take huge buckets of paint and dip my arms in and paint something, anything, nothing. It would be a really big painting, and it would fill my heart.

Try this: go outside. Stand or sit still for 3 minutes with your eyes closed and listen. Then open your eyes and shut your ears and look all around you. Then close your eyes and ears and just breathe and smell everything around you. Now open your eyes and ears. The world has so much more than we realize.

Sometimes it's good to just breathe. Deeply, getting fresh air. It opens your mind.

I want to take a wall and paint it. Or just scribble on it. Or put drawings and watercolors and crayon on it. Especially at the very top where I can't reach.

When was the last time you tried to turn a cartwheel or a somersault on a grassy green hill?

Smile at me when you walk by. Smile and mean it. Look into my eyes. Show me you care.

I don't want any money or food or things from you. I don't even say you have to be a good person. Just love me, even though you don't know me.

When a plane passes by, I wonder, where are they from, where are they going, who are these people? When it crashes, I wonder that I will never know.

237 die in a plane creash. One dies in a car crash. Which is more important? Do those 237 matter more than the one? Or is the one, being someone famous or rich or good, more important to the world?

Talk to the person next to you on the plane. Most likely you've never see her again, but you may change her life, and she yours.

Give of yourself. Money helps, but giving what is most important to you shows that you care. Give your time, your love, your friendship, your trust.

If and when you pray, don't ask. A truly Supreme Being will know what you want already. Instead, offer your devotion and commitment to good.

Do what you have to do. So I've been told. So if it's time to clean the toilet or oppose the government or go to jail for your wrongs, just do it unflinching, in the true knowledge that you are being honest with yourself.

I love me. It's the me inside that you love in me, and since I love you, I must love the me that's in you.

Sweet juicy fruits are delicious. Let the juice dribble down your chin and let the sweetness linger in your mouth.

Where did the rose get its fragrance? It's the love of lovers and the desire of all. The fragrance, the beauty in bunches of deep luscious red.

Have you felt the dew against your soles? It's wet and cool, and the soft grass is nature's plush carpet.

I will disappear from your world with a mug of hot cocoa or a tub of ice cream and a good book. Don't bother me with calories and chores and cholesterol.

I must dance with a partner. I'll grab my friend and she and I will dance around the house in our slippers and nightgowns to the music in our heads.

Play a tune. Pick an instrument. Learn to sing. Listen to good live music. It will move your heart and change your life.

Go without makeup and harspray and air-dry your hair for a week. Just wash your face, take a bath, wear some of the most comfortable things in your closet.

Travel. Pack only the barest minimum. Bring a pillow and jeans and a couple of t-shirts and sleepwear and a toothbrush, a hairbrush, underwear, a towel, soap, shampoo. Go where you've never been. Take a friend.

I collect things. Can tabs, candy wrappers, pretty pictures. And I'll take them and put them together and I will make you the perfect birthday present.

When I write a poem, I let it come out. I start a river of words and then the problem is not getting a poem but writing fast enough. These rivers of words leave behind sediment arranged to form the perfect poem.

Almost all of us talk to ourselves all the time. "I've gotta do this," "I'm bored," "Yay!" Silence your inner voices and experience true calm for the first time you remember.

I hope when I'm sixty that I still know how to tie my shoelaces, but my life will be over if I forget how to laugh.

I can never think what to give you for your birthday. Then I take a piece of my heart and cover it with wrapping paper, and you find a bouquet of flowers in your hand.

I love staying up late talking about nothing and laughing like we're insane, then dozing off on the sofa, and waking up only to sleep an hour more.

I get up on Saturday morning and there is music inside and sunshine outside. A bowl of cereal, cartoons, and sleep family eyes await me.

I want to climb a mountain and find atop it a cloud I can actually sit on, that will take me back to the bottom so I can climb again.