SAMPLE ISSUE

B
ITS &
P IECES
THE MAGAZINE THAT
MOTIVATES THE WORLD

Delight in
Simple Pleasures
see page 16

Also Inside:
A Sweet Lesson in Humanity
The Power of Belief
Facing Adversity
 SAMPLE ISSUE

Life is a great big canvas; throw all the

paint on it you can.
DANNY KAYE (1913–1987)
Entertainer

Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of

the pool or you go out in the ocean.
CHRISTOPHER REEVE
Actor

It’s never too late to be who you might

have been.
GEORGE ELIOT (1819–1880)
Writer

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Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a
hard battle.
PLATO (c. 427–347 B.C.)
Philosopher and educator

Keep away from people who try to belittle your

ambitions. Small people always do that, but the
really great make you feel that you, too, can
become great.
MARK TWAIN(1835–1910)
Humorist and writer

Character is doing what’s right when nobody’s

looking.
J. C. WATTS, JR.
Politician

I would not waste my life in friction when it

could be turned into momentum.
FRANCES WILLARD (1839–1898)
Educator

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 TENDING THE LAWN
“THE GRASS IS NOT, IN FACT,
ALWAYS GREENER on the other
side of the fence,” writes
Robert Fulghum in It Was on
Fire When I Lay Down on It (Villard Books).
“Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is
greenest where it is watered. When crossing
over fences, carry water with you and tend the
grass wherever you may be.”

A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s

experience.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809–1894)
Physician and writer

Don’t cry because it’s over—

smile because it happened.

I have found that if you love life, life will love

you back.
ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN (1887–1982)
Musician

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 A SWEET LESSON
IN HUMANITY
YEARS AGO, A 10-YEAR-OLD BOY
APPROACHED the counter of a soda
shop and climbed on to a stool.
“What does an ice cream sundae
cost?” he asked the waitress.
“Fifty cents,” she answered.
The youngster reached deep in his pockets
and pulled out an assortment of change, count-
ing it carefully as the waitress grew impatient.
She had “bigger” customers to wait on.
“Well, how much would just plain ice cream
be?” the boy asked.
The waitress responded with noticeable irri-
tation in her voice, “Thirty-five cents.”
Again, the boy slowly counted his money.
“May I have some plain ice cream in a dish
then, please?” He gave the waitress the correct
amount, and she brought him the ice cream.
Later, the waitress returned to clear the
boy’s dish and when she picked it up, she felt a
lump in her throat. There on the counter the
boy had left two nickels and five pennies. She
realized that he had had enough money for the

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sundae, but sacrificed it so that he could leave
her a tip.
The moral: Before passing judgment, first
treat others with courtesy, dignity, and respect.
Adapted from A Lifetime of Success
PAT WILLIAMS
Fleming H. Revell

MAKE YOUR MARK COUNT

A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which
every person leaves a mark.
CHINESE PROVERB

Three things in human life are important: The

first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And
the third is to be kind.
HENRY JAMES (1843–1916)
Writer

The game of life is the game of boomerangs.

Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us
sooner or later, with astounding accuracy.
FLORENCE SHINN (1871–1940)
Writer

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 When you reach for the stars
you may not quite get one, but
you won’t come up with a hand-
ful of mud either.
LEO BURNETT (1891–1971)
Advertising executive

You take people as far as they will go, not as far

as you would like them to go.
JEANETTE RANKIN (1880–1973)
Pacifist and politician

I’ve always tried to go a step past wherev-

er people expected me to end up.
BEVERLY SILLS
Opera singer

Help others get ahead. You will always stand

taller with someone else on your shoulders.
BOB MOAWAD
Business leader

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Nothing is easy to the unwilling.
NIKKI GIOVANNI
Poet

If all I’m remembered for is being a good bas-

ketball player, then I’ve done a bad job with the
rest of my life.
ISIAH THOMAS
Professional basketball player

Flexible people never get bent

out of shape!

Success isn’t permanent, and failure isn’t fatal.

MIKE DITKA
Professional football coach

The thing that is really hard, and really amaz-

ing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning
the work of becoming yourself.
ANNA QUINDLEN
Writer

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 IT DEPENDS ON
HOW YOU LOOK AT IT
A MAN PULLED INTO A GAS
STATION on the outskirts of
town. As he filled his tank, he
remarked to the attendant,
“I’ve just accepted a job in town. I’ve never
been to this part of the country. What are peo-
ple like here?”
“What are people like where you came
from?” the attendant asked.
“Not so nice,” the man replied. “In fact, they
can be quite rude.”
The attendant shook his head. “Well, I’m
afraid you’ll find the people in this town to be
the same way.”
Just then another car pulled into the station.
“Excuse me,” the driver called out. “I’m just
moving to this area. Is it nice here?”
“Was it nice where you came from?” the
attendant inquired.
“Oh, yes! I came from a great place. The
people were friendly, and I hated to leave.”
“Well, you’ll find the same to be true of this
town.”

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 “Thanks!” yelled the driver as he pulled
away.
“So what is this town really like?” asked the
first man, now irritated with the attendant’s
conflicting reports.
The attendant just shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s all a matter of perception. You’ll find things
to be just the way you think they are.”
Adapted from the Positive Christianity Web site

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All’s Well That Ends Well

I have never seen a monument erected to a

pessimist.
PAUL HARVEY
Radio commentator

Change your thoughts and you change

the world.
HAROLD R. MCALINDON
Writer

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 On the lighter side . . .

People will accept your ideas much more

readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin
said it first.
DAVID H. COMINS

To me, old age is fifteen years older than I am.
BERNARD M. BARUCH (1870–1965)
Presidential advisor

CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
Millions long for immortality who do not know
what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday
afternoon.
SUSAN ERTZ (1894–1985)
Writer


Education is when you read the fine print.

Experience is what you get if you don’t.
PETE SEEGER
Singer and composer

Truce is better than friction.
CHARLES HERGUTH

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Some think it’s holding on that makes one
strong; sometimes it’s letting go.
SYLVIA ROBINSON

Anger is the only thing to put off till tomor-

row.
SLOVAKIAN PROVERB

It’s very hard to take yourself too

seriously when you look at the
world from outer space.
THOMAS K. MATTINGLY II
Apollo 16 astronaut

We cannot direct the wind, but we can

adjust the sails.
BERTHA CALLOWAY
Founder of the Great Plains Black Museum

Worry is a misuse of the imagination.

DAN ZADRA
Business executive

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 MAKING DECISIONS
WILLIAM MCKINLEY, THE
25TH U.S. PRESIDENT, once
had to choose between two
equally qualified men for a
key job. He puzzled over the choice until he
remembered a long-ago incident.
On a rainy night, McKinley had boarded a
crowded streetcar. One of the men he was now
considering had also been aboard, though he
didn’t see McKinley. Then an old woman carry-
ing a basket of laundry struggled into the car,
looking in vain for a seat. The job candidate
pretended not to see her and kept his seat.
McKinley gave up his seat to help her.
Remembering the episode, which he called
“this little omission of kindness,” McKinley
decided against the man on the streetcar. Our
decisions—even the small, fleeting ones—tell a
lot about us.
Adapted from Presidential Anecdotes
PAUL F. BOLLER, JR.
Penguin Books

Only you can be yourself.

No one else is qualified for the job.

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Personality can open doors, but only character
can keep them open.
ELMER G. LETERMAN
Business executive

There can be no happiness if the things we

believe in are different from the things we do.
FREYA MADELINE STARK (1893–1993)
Travel writer

SUPERIORITY
The truth is that there is nothing noble in being
superior to somebody else. The only real nobil-
ity is in being superior to your former self.
WHITNEY YOUNG (1921–1971)
Civil rights leader

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope—a

slight change, and all patterns alter.
SHARON SALZBERG
Cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society

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 KNOW WHAT COUNTS
No matter what you’ve done for yourself or for
humanity, if you can’t look back on having given
love and attention to your own family, what
have you really accomplished?
LEE IACOCCA
Automobile executive

Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting

even and one-upping, always make you less
than you are.
MALCOLM FORBES (1919–1990)
Publisher

There are spaces between our

fingers so that another person’s
fingers can fill them in.

Be life long or short, its completeness depends

on what it was lived for.
DAVID STARR JORDAN (1851–1931)
Educator and writer

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The bitterest tears shed over graves are for
words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811–1896)
Writer

There’s nothing like a newborn baby to

renew your spirit—and to buttress your
resolve to make the world a better place.
VIRGINIA KELLEY (1923–1994)
Nurse

While we have the gift of life, it seems to me

the only tragedy is to allow part of us to die—
whether it is our spirit, our creativity, or our
glorious uniqueness.
GILDA RADNER (1946–1989)
Comedian

You cannot live a perfect day without doing

something for someone who will never be
able to repay you.
JOHN WOODEN
College basketball coach

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 THE VALUE OF
SIMPLE PLEASURES
y ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD ZLATA
ar
Di
FILIPOVIC, like so many girls
her age, kept a diary in 1991.
“We gave ourselves a treat today,” she wrote
one July day. “We picked the cherries off the
tree in the yard and ate them all up. We had
watched it blossom and its small green fruits
slowly turn red and now here we were eating
them. Oh, you’re a wonderful cherry tree!”
Zlata’s words read like any young girl’s
whimsical musings. But this innocent summer
activity held a much deeper meaning: Zlata
wrote the diary entry in the midst of war in her
hometown of Sarajevo. “I miss fruit a lot,” she
continued. “In these days of war in Sarajevo,
there is no basic food or any of the other things
a person needs, and there is no fruit. But now I
can say that I ate myself silly on cherries.”
That simple pleasure brought tremendous
joy to a girl who witnessed brutality daily.
Simple pleasures can do that if we take the time
to appreciate what the moment offers.
Adapted from Zlata’s Diary
ZLATA FILIPOVIC
Viking Press

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[A] friend told me that each morning when we
get up we have to decide whether we are going
to save or savor the world. I don’t think that is
the decision. It’s not an either/or, save or savor.
We have to do both, save and savor the world.
KATE CLINTON
Comedian

The average human heart beats 100,000

times a day. Make those beats count.

LIVE FOR THE MOMENT

If I have learnt anything, it is that life forms no
logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of
beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for
who knows whether any of them will ever
return?
MARGOT FONTEYN (1919–1991)
Dancer

Follow the grain in your own wood.

HOWARD THURMAN (1900–1981)
Clergyman

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Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all
they have.
H. JACKSON BROWN, JR.
Writer

WHAT IS LOVE?
Imagine how much easier it would be for us
to learn how to love if we began with a shared
definition.
BELL HOOKS
Writer and critic

Make the most of yourself, for that is all

there is of you.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803–1882)
Philosopher and writer

For the most part, fear is nothing but an illu-

sion. When you share it with someone else, it
tends to disappear.
MARILYN C. BARRICK
Psychologist and writer

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One never knows what each day is going to
bring. The important thing is to be open and
ready for it.
HENRY MOORE (1898–1986)
Sculptor

There is no greater joy nor greater reward than

to make a fundamental difference in someone’s
life.
SISTER MARY ROSE MCGEADY
Children’s advocate

If you want others to be happy, practice com-

passion. If you want to be happy, practice
compassion.
THE DALAI LAMA
Religious leader

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call

it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you
are, you need one.
JANE HOWARD (1935–1996)
Writer

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 BELIEF IS ALL
YOU NEED
A MAN WAS LOST WHILE DRIV-
ING THROUGH THE COUNTRY.
As he tried to read a map, he
accidentally drove off the
road into a ditch. Though he
wasn’t injured, his car was stuck deep in the
mud. So the man walked to a nearby farm to ask
for help.
“Warwick can get you out of that ditch,” said
the farmer, pointing to an old mule standing in
a field. The man looked at the haggardly mule
and looked at the farmer who just stood there
repeating, “Yep, old Warwick can do the job.”
The man figured he had nothing to lose. The
two men and Warwick made their way back to
the ditch.
The farmer hitched the mule to the car.
With a snap of the reins he shouted, “Pull,
Fred! Pull, Jack! Pull, Ted! Pull, Warwick!” And
the mule pulled the car from the ditch with very
little effort.
The man was amazed. He thanked the
farmer, patted the mule and asked, “Why did
you call out all of those other names before you
called Warwick?”

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 The farmer grinned and said, “Old Warwick
is just about blind. As long as he believes he’s
part of a team, he doesn’t mind pulling.”
Adapted from Some Folks Feel the Rain
. . . Others Just Get Wet
JAMES W. MOORE
Dimensions

Nobody will believe in you unless you

believe in yourself.
LIBERACE (1919–1987)
Pianist

The opportunity for brotherhood presents itself

every time you meet a human being.
JANE WYMAN
Actor

There are two ways of exerting one’s

strength: one is pushing down, the other is
pulling up.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON (1856–1915)
Educator

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 On Friendship

A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows

you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies
your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your
spirit; recognizes your disabilities but empha-
sizes your possibilities.
WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD
Educator

True friends are those who really know you but
love you anyway.
EDNA BUCHANAN
Writer


Trouble is a sieve through which we sift our

acquaintances. Those too big to pass through
are our friends.
ARLENE FRANCIS (1907–2001)
Actor

Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and
place them in their best light.
JENNIE JEROME CHURCHILL (1854–1921)
Mother of Winston Churchill

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the
candle or the mirror that reflects it.
EDITH WHARTON
“Vesalius in Zante”

Minds are like parachutes—they only

function when open.
THOMAS DEWAR

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

JEAN GIRAUDOUX(1882–1944)
Diplomat and writer

Life is an escalator: You can move forward

or backward; you can not remain still.
PATRICIA RUSSELL-MCCLOUD
Motivational speaker

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth.

. . . Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.
NOELA EVANS

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 IN THE ‘TEST KITCHEN’ OF LIFE
A YOUNG WOMAN WAS COMPLAINING to her
father about how difficult her life had become.
He said nothing, but took her to the kitchen
and set three pans of water to boiling. To the
first pan, he added carrots; to the second, eggs;
and to the third, ground coffee. After all three
had cooked, he put their contents into separate
bowls and asked his daughter to cut into the
eggs and carrots and smell the coffee. “What
does this all mean?” she asked impatiently.
“Each food,” he said, “teaches us something
about facing adversity, as represented by the
boiling water.” The carrot went in hard but
came out soft and weak. The eggs went in frag-
ile but came out hardened. The coffee, how-
ever, changed the water to something better.
“Which will you be like as you face life?” he
asked. Will you give up, become hard—or
transform adversity into triumph? As the “chef”
of your own life, what will you bring to the
table?
Adapted from the AccessChristian Web site

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