“If you asked my kids to describe me, they'd go through a whole list of words before even thinking about Parkinson's. And honestly, I don't think about it that much either. I talk about it because it's there, but it's not my totality.”Tagged: Children, Optimism
“I've learned some exciting things - mostly, that people really want to help each other.”Tagged: Friendship, humanity
“I don't look at life as a battle or as a fight. I don't think I'm scrappy. I'm accepting.”Tagged: Life, accepting, struggles
“Then I would say be patient with people who are negative, because they're really having a hard time.”Tagged: Patience, Negativity
“If you have doubts about someone, lay on a couple of jokes. If he doesn't find anything funny, your radar should be screaming.”Tagged: Doubts, Laughter, red flags
“The more I expect, the more unhappy I am going to be. The more I accept, the more serene I am.”Tagged: Expectations, Acceptance, Happiness
“My notion of spirituality was different than it is now, but even if I'd been the most fundamentalist of believers, I would have assumed that God had better things to do than arbitrarily smite me with shaking palsy.”Tagged: Spirituality, God, Suffering
“If you were to rush into this room right now and announce that you had struck a deal - with God, Allah, Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Bill Gates, whomever - in which the ten years since my diagnosis could be magically taken away, traded in for ten more years as the person I was before - I would, without…”Tagged: Pain, Suffering, God
“It seems to me that the quality of a moment in time is not always a reflection of the moment in and of itself—what happens before and what happens after are often what give it its savor.”Tagged: enjoy life, Past, Future
“After all that I'd been through, after all that I'd learned and all that I'd been given, I was going to do what I had been doing every day for the last few years now: just show up and do the best that I could do with whatever lay in front of me.”Tagged: Learning, Pain, Suffering
“I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business.”Tagged: excellence, Perfection, God
“One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”Tagged: dignity, Self-Esteem
“Frankly, my height or lack thereof never bothered me much. Although there is no doubt that it has contributed to a certain mental toughness. I've made the most of the head start one gains from being underestimated.”Tagged: Positivity, underestimated, strength
“Listening to people espouse beliefs different from mine is informative, not threatening, because the only thing that can alter my worldview is a new and undeniable truth.”Tagged: Beliefs, Opinions
“Do the right thing, and then do the next right thing, and that will lead you to the next right thing after that.”Tagged: Right, Choices, Decisions