The doing of good deeds is important. As a free person, you can choose to live your life as a good person or as a bad person. To be a good person, do good deeds. To be a bad person, do bad deeds. If you do good deeds, you will become good. If you do bad deeds, you will become bad. To become the person you want to be, act as if you already are that kind of person. Each of us chooses what kind of person we will become. To become a good person, do the things a good person does. To become a ba...

In Westphalia, a gentle youth lived in the beautiful castle of Baron Thunderstormcumlightning. Anyone could look at the youth's face and see that he was both good-natured and weak-minded. This is why he was given the name Candide, although Virginia would have been a good choice if he had been born female. No one knew who his parents were, but that did not keep the servants from guessing, aka gossiping. Their guess, or gossip, was that Candide was the son of the Baron's sister and a nearby ...

Some Samples: 1) Late in life, Fanny Brice—radio's Baby Snooks—enjoyed interior decorating, often decorating her friends' houses for free (and disregarding their advice while doing so). She acquired her good taste in decorating through asking questions constantly and not pretending like she already knew everything. She also began talking about where to leave her money after she died. One day, when one of her little grandchildren was making more racket than usual, she said, "One more crack ...

An excerpt: When most people speculate about the happiest time of Nadia's life, they probably think of her performance at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. In fact, on the last day of competition at the Montreal Olympics, after she had won five medals, Nadia said, "Today is the happiest day of my life!" However, on the day of her wedding to Bart Conner, Nadia said, "Today, the 1976 Montreal Olympics move on to second place for me."

This book contains 250 anecdotes about the theater, including these: 1) British actor Pete Postlethwaite has a rugged face. When he was studying at the Bristol Old Vic, he ran out of money to pay for the completion of his course of study. However, the head of the school knew that the young man had real talent, so he told him, "Listen, I have a hunch you're going to do all right in this business, so I'm going to put down the outstanding amount as a debt and then, in a few years' time, I'll ...

While on a Caribbean Cruise and after numerous bottles of Moscato wine and several trips to the all-you-can-eat dessert bar, four sisters decided to write a book about their love affair with food and their experiences with diet disasters. With a combined 224 years of experience between the sisters, they consider themselves experts at diet failures.Once the title of the book was decided, they eagerly disembarked the ship, headed home, and not very quickly began writing about their di...

Some samples: 1) Blues singer Muddy Waters first heard his voice on a recording in the early 1940s. His impression of his voice was positive; afterward, he said, "I thought, man, this boy can sing the blues. And I was surprised because I didn't know I sang like that." 2)At age 13, William F. Buckley was sent to an English boarding school, where his piano teacher offered to teach him the first movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." However, William's old piano teacher had warned him th...

This book contains 250 anecdotes, including these: 1) In 2008, comedian Margaret Cho debuted a new show: "Beautiful." The genesis of the show came when a radio host asked Ms. Cho, "What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful?" She was shocked by the question because, as people who know and love her (or see her) realize, she is beautiful. She asked the radio host, "What?" and he explained, "What if you woke up and you were blond, blue-eyed, 5' 11" and weighed 100 lbs an...

This book consists of a number of philosophical arguments about ethics that I find interesting and that I think that some other people may find interesting.May you be struck by philosophical lightning.

Some samples: 1) Rock goddesses have kids, too. Pat Benatar was a major 1980s rock star and continues to play today. Her songs such as "Heartbreaker" are on Guitar Hero, and lots of children—and adults—rock out to them, including her two daughters, Haley and Hana. Of course, kids can ask embarrassing questions, and Haley and Hana sometimes ask their mom this question about the Spandex pants she used to wear on stage: "How did you get into those pants?" 2) What if you were in a plane, a sto...

Some samples: 1) Notre Dame football player George Gipp was athletically gifted in more than one sport. In a baseball game, he was ordered to bunt, but instead he hit a home run. Why? He explained that he didn't want to spend much time standing on the bases because it was too hot. When he was a star football player, he talked to a newcomer to the varsity team, Roger Kiley, giving him a thrill because a star was noticing him. Unfortunately, Mr. Kiley dropped the first forward pass that Mr. ...

Some samples: 1) Dee Dee Ramone could be pretty crazy. When the Ramones first played in London, their record company gave them unlimited room service, and Dee Dee acted the way that he thought a rock star should act and ordered so many bottles of Scotch that in two days his room service bill was $700. The record company representatives were surprised by the size of the bill, and they told Dee Dee, "We just thought you were going to order some cheese sandwiches and Coca-Cola." 2) In New Yor...