National Wear Red Day 2019 February 1

Stemming from that action, National Wear Red Day was born. It’s held on the first Friday in February every year to raise awareness about heart disease being the No. 1 killer of women.
Today Is National Wear Red Day. Here’s Why People Are Dressing Up. … NationalWear Red Day is intended to help raise awareness of heart disease, in particular among women. Heart disease is often generally associated with men, but cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women
Celebrate National Wear Red Day to raise awareness about women and heart disease. Encourage everyone in your community to wear red on February 3, 2017. Visit Go Red for Women for more information. Host an American Heart Month event at a local school, health center, or library.
About the Red Dress Pin. The red dress pin represents the national women’s heart disease awareness campaign. The pin was first introduced as a symbol for the campaign by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in 2002.

 

Women (and men) across America will be color-coordinating today for National Wear Red Day 2018, which aims to dispel myths surrounding heart diseases.

National Wear Red Day is intended to help raise awareness of heart disease, in particular among women. Heart disease is often generally associated with men, but cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women.

Every year, nearly 500,000 American women die from heart disease and stroke.

Here are five more heart disease facts from the American Heart Association in honor of National Wear Red Day:
  1. Only 55 percent of women realize heart disease is the No. 1 killer for American women.
  2. Fewer than half of American women know what a healthy blood pressure or cholesterol level is.
  3. Your BMI (Body Mass Index) isn’t just helpful when it comes to diets or losing weight – it’s also linked to your risk of heart disease.
  4. It’s a myth that strokes, which affect the arteries linked to the brain, only happen to older people. Strokes can happen even in infants.
  5. Women are also more likely to suffer from a stroke, contrary to popular myths.

Heart Disease Facts :

  • Heart disease kills one woman every 80 seconds
  • Every year, 30% of the deaths among women in the U.S are caused by heart attacks and strokes.
  • 64% of women who die suddenly from heart disease will have no prior symptoms
  • High cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and smoking all contribute to heart disease
  • Physical inactivity also is a contributing factor to heart disease half of them are now more physically active. 
Heart Disease Facts :
  • Heart disease kills one woman every 80 seconds
  • Every year, 30% of the deaths among women in the U.S are caused by heart attacks and strokes.
  • 64% of women who die suddenly from heart disease will have no prior symptoms
  • High cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and smoking all contribute to heart disease
  • Physical inactivity also is a contributing factor to heart disease

                       Healthier Recipes

Healthier Taco Pasta

8-12 oz. large shell pasta (or other types of pasta)
3/4 Lb. lean ground beef or ground turkey
1 packet of taco seasoning
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. onion powder
pepper, to taste
1 Tbl. brown sugar, opt.
1/2 c. hot pasta water
1 can low-sodium black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can mild Rotel, undrained
1 heaping cup low-fat cottage cheese
2 Tbl. chopped cilantro

Cook pasta according to package directions; reserving 1/2 cup hot water.  Meanwhile, brown ground beef or turkey in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the taco seasoning, cumin, onion powder, some black pepper, and brown sugar.  Carefully add 1/2 cup of the hot pasta water to the skillet and stir to combine; allow to simmer for a few minutes.  It should be thickened at this point.  Stir in the beans, Rotel, cottage cheese and cilantro.  Continue to heat over medium heat and add the drained, cooked pasta.  Stir until pasta is evenly coated in sauce.  The sauce should be thick and creamy, but if it isn’t, simmer for a few minutes until thickened.  Serves 4-5

One Pan Healthy Sausage and Veggies
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Servings 4 if served with rice/quinoa
Author Chelsea
Ingredients
2 cups (~1 small) red potato
3/4ths pound green beans
1 large head of broccoli
1 and 1/2 cups chopped bell peppers
9 ounces smoked sausage
6 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Serve with: fresh parsley, quinoa/rice, lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Line a large sheet pan with foil or parchment paper.
3. Prep the veggies: chop the red potatoes (pretty small pieces here so they will be tender in time), trim the green beans
and halve (see video above recipe), chop the broccoli, chop the peppers into thick squares, and coin the sausage in thick
slices.
4. Place all the veggies and sausage on a sheet pan. Pour the olive oil and all the spices on top. Toss to evenly coat all the
veggies and meat.
5. Bake 15 minutes, remove from the oven and flip/stir all the veggies around. Return to the oven and bake for another 10-
15 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender and sausage is browned.
6. If desired, sprinkle freshly grated Parmesan cheese over the veggies and sausage as soon as they come out of the oven.
7. Enjoy with rice or quinoa and fresh parsley if desired.

Baked Sweet & Sour Cauliflower
Easy and healthy baked sweet & sour cauliflower is a delicious twist on classic sweet & sour chicken or pork and it’s baked
instead of fried. You won’t miss the meat in this lightened up classic!
Course Main Course
Cuisine Asian
Keyword cauliflower, healthy, vegetarian
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Servings 4
Author Tiffany
Ingredients
Sauce
Instructions
5-6 cups cauliflower florets
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/3 cup corn starch
3-4 cups steamed rice, for serving
thinly sliced green onions for garnish
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar (may sub white vinegar)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion salt
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon cornstarch + 2 tablespoon cold water
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees and grease a baking sheet. Combine cauliflower and oil in a large ziplock bag. Seal and
shake to coat cauliflower in the oil. Open the bag, add corn starch, seal bag and toss to coat again.
2. Transfer coated cauliflower to greased pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes until cauliflower starts to brown on the bottoms.
Switch oven to broil and cook on high for 3-4 minutes just until tops start to brown. (watch carefully so the cauliflower
doesn’t burn!)
3. While cauliflower is cooking, prepare the sauce: Add sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic powder, onion salt, and ketchup
to a medium saucepan. Stir and bring to a boil. In a small bowl whisk together the 1 tablespoon corn starch and cold
water until dissolved. Add to saucepan and stir until thickened, then reduce to low heat.
4. In a large heat-safe combine roasted cauliflower and sauce. Serve with steamed rice and top with sliced green onions.

Chicken and Broccoli Stir Fry
This recipe for chicken and broccoli stir fry is a classic dish of chicken sauteed with fresh broccoli florets and coated in
a savory sauce. You can have a healthy and easy dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes!
Course Main
Cuisine Asian
Keyword broccoli stir fry, chicken and broccoli stir fry, chicken stir fry
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings 4 servings
Calories 308kcal
Author Dinner at the Zoo
Ingredients
Instructions
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast cut into 1 inch pieces
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 cups small broccoli florets
1 cup sliced mushrooms if you don’t like mushrooms you can add more broccoli instead
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth or water
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
salt and pepper to taste
1. Heat 1 teaspoon of oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the broccoli and mushrooms and cook for
approximately 4 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
2. Add the ginger and garlic to the pan and cook for 30 seconds more.
3. Remove the vegetables from the pan; place them on a plate and cover.
4. Wipe the pan clean with a paper towel and turn the heat to high. Add the remaining tablespoon of oil.
5. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and add them to the pan in a single layer – you may need to do
this step in batches. Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden brown and cooked through.
6. Add the vegetables back to the pan and cook for 2 more minutes or until the vegetables are warmed through.
7. In a bowl whisk together the oyster sauce, chicken broth, sugar, sesame oil, and soy sauce. In a small bowl mix
the cornstarch with a tablespoon of cold water.

Blackened Shrimp Salad

BLACKENED SHRIMP SALAD
PREP TIME: 
COOK TIME: 
TOTAL TIME: 
SERVES: 2
Blackened Shrimp Salad loaded with tons of flavor! Piled high with salsa, corn, black beans, and spicy blackened shrimp. A healthy and flavorful summer meal!
INGREDIENTS
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • 12 large shrimp, deveined, tails removed
  • 1-2 teaspoons blackening seasoning (depending on how spicy you like it)
  • 4 cups spring mix (or your favorite lettuce)
  • ¼ cup black beans drained and rinsed
  • ¼ cup grilled corn
  • ¼ cup fresh salsa
  • lime wedges for serving, if desired
INSTRUCTIONS
  1. Add olive oil to a large skillet and heat.
  2. Sprinkle shrimp with blackening seasoning.
  3. Saute until fully cooked, 3-4 minutes or until opaque.
  4. To assemble the salad fill two bowls with mixed greens.
  5. Top with cooked shrimp, black beans, salsa, corn, and lime wedges, if desired.
  6. Serve immediately with a drizzle of sour cream, ranch.
Healthy Green Smoothie Recipes

Good Green Tea Smoothie

  • Cook10 m
  • Ready In10 m
Recipe By: EatingWell Test Kitchen
“This green smoothie is packed with grapes, spinach, green tea, and avocado. A touch of honey adds sweetness.”

Ingredients

    • 3 cups frozen white grapes
    • 2 packed cups baby spinach
    • 1½ cups strong brewed green tea (see Tip), cooled
    • 1 medium ripe avocado
    • 2 teaspoons honey

Directions

  • 1Combine grapes, spinach, green tea, avocado and honey in a blender; blend until smooth. Serve immediately.
  • Tip: To brew strong green tea, use twice the amount of tea (or two tea bags), but do not over steep. Green tea should be steeped for no longer than 3 minutes; over steeping will give the tea a bitter taste.

Jason Mraz’s Avocado Green Smoothie

To make this green smoothie recipe a meal-in-a-glass, musician Mraz adds a tablespoon of coconut oil and some sprouted flax or chia seeds.

  • By: Jason Mraz
To make this green smoothie recipe a meal-in-a-glass, musician Mraz adds a tablespoon of coconut oil and some sprouted flax or chia seeds.”

Ingredients

    • 1¼ cups cold unsweetened almond milk or coconut milk beverage
    • 1 ripe avocado
    • 1 ripe banana
    • 1 sweet apple, such as Honeycrisp, sliced
    • ½ large or 1 small stalk celery, chopped
    • 2 cups lightly packed kale leaves or spinach
    • 1 1-inch piece peeled fresh ginger
    • 8 ice cubes

Directions

  • 1Blend milk beverage, avocado, banana, apple, celery, kale (or spinach), ginger and ice in a blender until very smooth

Raspberry-Peach-Mango Smoothie Bowl

  • Cook
    10 m
  • Ready In
    10 m
Recipe By: EatingWell Test Kitchen
“This healthy smoothie recipe is a gateway to the smoothie-bowl craze. Use whatever fruit, nuts, and seeds you like best to make it your own. Be sure to use frozen fruit in Step 1 to yield a creamy, frosty base for the toppings.”

Ingredients

    • 1 cup frozen mango chunks
    • ¾ cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt
    • ¼ cup reduced-fat milk
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    • ¼ ripe peach, sliced
    • ⅓ cup raspberries
    • 1 tablespoon sliced almonds, toasted if desired
    • 1 tablespoon unsweetened coconut flakes, toasted if desired
    • 1 teaspoon chia seeds

Directions

1Combine mango, yogurt, milk, and vanilla in a blender. Puree until smooth.
2Pour the smoothie into a bowl and top with peach slices, raspberries, almonds, coconut and chia seeds to taste.nd vanilla in a blender. Puree until smooth.

Healthy Tropical Smoothie Recipes

Find healthy, delicious tropical smoothie recipes, from the food and nutrition experts at EatingWell.

Recipe Image

Unicorn Smoothie

  • Prep 20 m
  • Ready In20 m
“Turn a healthy breakfast into a magical treat with the naturally colorful layers in this fruit smoothie. Add a fruit skewer to take this fun rainbow recipe to the next level.”

Ingredients

    • 1½ cups low-fat milk, divided
    • 1½ cups low-fat vanilla yogurt, divided
    • 3 large bananas, divided
    • 1 cup frozen blackberries or blueberries
    • 1 cup frozen mango chunks
    • 1 cup frozen raspberries or strawberries
    • Star fruit, kiwi, mixed berries and chia seeds for garnish

Directions

  • 1Combine ½ cup each milk and yogurt, 1 banana and blackberries (or blueberries) in a blender. Blend until smooth. Divide the mixture among 4 large glasses. Place in the freezer. Rinse out the blender.
  • 2Combine ½ cup each milk and yogurt, 1 banana and mango chunks in the blender. Blend until smooth. Divide the mixture over the purple layer in the glasses. Return the glasses to the freezer. Rinse out the blender.
  • 3Combine the remaining ½ cup each milk and yogurt, the remaining banana and raspberries (or strawberries) in the blender. Blend until smooth. Divide the mixture over the yellow layer in the glasses. Run a skewer around the edges to swirl the layers slightly.
  • 4If desired, arrange star fruit slices, kiwi slices, and berries on 4 wooden skewers to garnish each glass. Sprinkle with chia seeds, if desired.

Papaya-Coconut Smoothie  

  • Prep
    5 m
  • Ready In
    5 m
“Tropical fruits combine with coconut milk in this healthy smoothie recipe that’s like a vacation in a glass.”

Ingredients

    • ¾ cup unsweetened coconut milk beverage
    • ½ cup chopped cantaloupe
    • ½ cup chopped papaya
    • ½ frozen medium banana
    • 1 pitted date
    • 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
    • 2-4 ice cubes
    • Unsweetened coconut flakes for garnish

Directions

  • 1Combine coconut milk beverage, cantaloupe, papaya, banana, date, flaxseed and ice cubes in a blender. Puree until smooth. Garnish with coconut flakes, if desired.

 

Mango-Passion Fruit Smoothie

    

  • Cook
    5 m
  • Ready In
    5 m
“Tangy passion fruit pairs well with mango in this tropical-flavored smoothie.”

Ingredients

    • 1 ripe mango, peeled and diced (1 cup)
    • ⅔ cup nonfat vanilla yogurt
    • ⅓- ½ cup frozen passion fruit juice concentrate
    • ¼ cup water
    • 2 ice cubes, crushed

Directions

  • 1Combine mango, yogurt, ⅓ cup juice concentrate, water and crushed ice in a blender; cover and blend until smooth and frothy. Add more concentrate, if desired. Serve immediately.

Pineapple Smoothie

  • Cook
    10 m
  • Ready In
    10 m
Recipe By: Patsy Jamieson
“A touch of pineapple-orange juice concentrate adds even more pineapple flavor to this refreshing smoothie.”

Ingredients

    • 1 cup cubed fresh or drained canned pineapple
    • ¼ cup frozen pineapple-orange-juice concentrate
    • ½ cup nonfat vanilla yogurt
    • ¼ cup water
    • 2 ice cubes, crushed

Directions

  • 1Combine pineapple, pineapple-orange-juice concentrate, yogurt, water, and ice cubes in a blender; blend until smooth and frothy. Serve immediately.

Mango Piña Colada Smoothie

  • Cook
    5 m
  • Ready In
    5 m
“Mango adds sweet flair to the traditional piña colada flavors of pineapple and coconut in this healthy fruit smoothie recipe that will have you feeling like you’re on the beach.”
Ingredients
    • 1 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt
    • ¾ cup frozen pineapple
    • ¾ cup frozen mango
    • ½ cup “lite” coconut milk (see Tip)
    • Unsweetened coconut flakes for garnish
Directions
  • 1Combine yogurt, pineapple, mango and coconut milk in a blender. Puree until smooth. Garnish with coconut flakes, if desired.
  • Tip: Refrigerate leftover coconut milk for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 2 months. It will appear separated when thawed; simply mix until smooth.

Virgin Banana Piña Colada Pops

  • Prep
    15 m
  • Ready In
    4 h 15 m
“The tropical flavors of a piña colada make for one delicious ice pop. Be sure to reach for ripe bananas to get the perfect sweetness (without any added sugar!) for this clean-eating-friendly frozen treat.”
Ingredients
    • 2 very ripe bananas, sliced
    • 1 cup diced fresh pineapple
    • 1 cup pineapple juice
    • 1 cup coconut milk (see Tip)
Directions
  • 1Combine bananas, pineapple, pineapple juice and coconut milk in a blender. Puree until smooth. Divide among ten 3-ounce popsicle molds and freeze until firm, at least 4 hours.
  • To make ahead: Freeze for up to 3 weeks.
  • Equipment: Ten 3-ounce (or similar-size) freezer-pop molds
  • Tip: Shake the can of coconut milk well before using. Refrigerate leftover coconut milk for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 2 months. It will appear separated when thawed; simply mix until smooth.
Recipe Image

Cherry Piña Colada Smoothie

    

  • Cook
    5 m
  • Ready In
    5 m
“Cherries add tangy flair to the traditional piña colada flavors of pineapple and coconut in this healthy fruit smoothie recipe that will have you dreaming of a beach vacation.”
Ingredients
    • 1 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt
    • ¾ cup frozen pineapple
    • ¾ cup frozen pitted cherries
    • ½ cup “lite” coconut milk (see Tip)
    • Unsweetened coconut flakes for garnish
Directions

  • 1Combine yogurt, pineapple, cherries and coconut milk in a blender. Puree until smooth. Garnish with coconut flakes, if desired.
  • Tip: Refrigerate leftover coconut milk for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 2 months. It will appear separated when thawed; simply mix until smooth.
Recipe Image

Cherry Piña Colada Smoothie   

  • Cook
    5 m
  • Ready In
    5 m
“Cherries add tangy flair to the traditional piña colada flavors of pineapple and coconut in this healthy fruit smoothie recipe that will have you dreaming of a beach vacation.”
Ingredients

    • 1 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt
    • ¾ cup frozen pineapple
    • ¾ cup frozen pitted cherries
    • ½ cup “lite” coconut milk (see Tip)
    • Unsweetened coconut flakes for garnish
Directions

  • 1Combine yogurt, pineapple, cherries and coconut milk in a blender. Puree until smooth. Garnish with coconut flakes, if desired.
  • Tip: Refrigerate leftover coconut milk for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 2 months. It will appear separated when thawed; simply mix until smooth.
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National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week

National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week® (NDAFW) is a health observance week for teens that aims to SHATTER THE MYTHS® about drug and alcohol use. 2019 National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week®: Tuesday, January 22nd through Sunday, January 27th.NDAFW logoNIDA: NDAFW is a week-long series of events that links teens to science-based facts to shatter the myths about drugs. Healthcare professionals can participate in NDAFW by providing teens with free resources about drugs. For other event ideas, toolkits, and to register your event, go to the National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week webpage

 

2019 National Drug & Alcohol IQ Challenge

Click to access DrugIQChallenge-2019-508.pdf

For more information on National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week® visit the Web site: http://teens.drugabuse.gov/national-drug-facts-week, email us at drugfacts@nida.nih.gov, or call 301-­443-­1124.

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Best the Book of 2018

Best Books of 2018. Of all the outstanding titles that grabbed your attention from last year. Get your to-read list ready for 2018—it’s going to be a good year for books list 

BEST FICTION

Still Me by Jojo Moyes Still Me By Jojo Moyes 
Jojo Moyes wins the Best Fiction award for her third book in the Me Before You series (the first book was adapted into a tearjerker of a movie). Here heroine Louisa Clark ventures to New York City to start a new life.
BEST MYSTERY & THRILLER
The Outsider by Stephen King
 The Outsider -Stephen King
However, the plot is wholly consistent and split into several titled sections, each section containing multiple chapters. In addition, there is a small epilogue following the climax. The sections are ordered according to date in relativity to the inciting incident. The first section in the fictional town of Flint City, Oklahoma. Police detective Ralph Anderson arrests popular teacher and Little League Baseball coach Terry Maitland in front of a crowd of baseball game spectators, charging him with raping, killing, and mutilating an 11-year-old boy. The town quickly turns against Maitland. Maitland insists he is innocent and hires his friend and lawyer, Howie Gold to assist him, but Anderson has eyewitnesses and clear physical evidence (DNA and fingerprints) of his guilt. In the meantime, eager reporters harass Terry’s wife, Marcy, and his two daughters, Sarah and Grace.
BEST HISTORICAL FICTION
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
The Great Alone
 This family drama set in the wilderness of Alaska in 1974 captured readers’ hearts with its portrayal of crisis and survival amid an unforgiving landscape.
BEST FANTASY
Circe by Madeline MillerCirce

byMadeline Miller 
Sing, o Muse, of the triumph of Circe. Madeline Miller’s reimagining of The Odyssey is less concerned with mortal men, focusing instead on a strange woman, one possessed with power and the blood of the gods
BEST OF THE BEST
The Hate U Give by Angie ThomasThe Hate U Give by Angie Thomas 
 Angie Thomas returns to claim the victory in our special tenth anniversary Best of the Best category, which had readers pick an ultimate favorite from 170 past winners. Her powerful debut, The Hate U Give, follows a 16-year-old who finds her voice after her unarmed childhood best friend is fatally shot by the police.
BEST ROMANCE
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
The Kiss Quotient
byHelen Hoang
The numbers are in. This year readers fell in love with Stella Lane, the unforgettable heroine from Helen Hoang’s The Kiss Quotient. More comfortable with data than with dating, Stella turns to escort-turned-teacher Michael Phan to learn all the ways of modern romance.
BEST SCIENCE FICTION
Vengeful (Villains, #2)  Vengeful byV.E. Schwab
The beloved writer (who also publishes children’s and young adult books as Victoria Schwab) now takes home her first win with Vengeful. The second book in her Villains series continues the dark saga of would-be superheroes transfixed by dangerous experiments and the advantages of “post-death” life. Eli Ever and Victor Vale were only medical students when their mutual discovery that near-death experiences can, under the right conditions, manifest extraordinary abilities.

They were best friends and rivals, and then enemies. They were dead, then alive, and then—Eli killed Victor, once and for all

BEST HORROR
Elevation by Stephen King
Elevation by Stephen King 
Up against books about vampires, haunted houses, and Satan himself, Stephen King’s eerie tale of a small town with big troubles beat back the competition. Although Scott Carey doesn’t look any different, he’s been steadily losing weight. There are a couple of other odd things, too. He weighs the same in his clothes and out of them, no matter how heavy they are. Scott doesn’t want to be poked and prodded. He mostly just wants someone else to know, and he trusts Doctor Bob Ellis.

In the small town of Castle Rock, the setting of many of King’s most iconic stories, Scott is engaged in a low grade—but escalating—battle with the lesbians next door whose dog regularly drops his business on Scott’s lawn. One of the women is friendly; the other, cold as ice. Both are trying to launch a new restaurant, but the people of Castle Rock want no part of a gay married couple, and the place is in trouble. When Scott finally understands the prejudices they face–including his own—he tries to help. Unlikely alliances, the annual foot race, and the mystery of Scott’s affliction bring out the best in people who have indulged the worst in themselves and others.

BEST MEMOIR & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Becoming
Becoming by Michelle Obama
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States.

In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African-American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.

In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms.

Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.

Educated by Tara Westover
Educated by Tara Westover
Tara Westover struck gold with her first book and first Goodreads Choice Award win for Educated. The memoir has spent more than half a year on The New York Times‘ bestsellers list and was heralded by Barack Obama as a “remarkable memoir of a young woman raised in a survivalist family in Idaho who strives for education while still showing great understanding and love for the world she leaves behind.”
BEST HUMOR
The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany HaddishThe Last Black Unicorn
by Tiffany Haddish
Is there anything Tiffany Haddish can’t do? In 2018 alone, she headlined comedy festivals across the country, starred in four major Hollywood movies, and acted in a TBS television show
From stand-up comedian, actress, and breakout star of Girls Trip, Tiffany Haddish, comes The Last Black Unicorn, a sidesplitting, hysterical, edgy, and unflinching collection of (extremely) personal essays, as fearless as the author herself.

Growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, Tiffany learned to survive by making people laugh. If she could do that, then her classmates would let her copy their homework, the other foster kids she lived with wouldn’t beat her up, and she might even get a boyfriend. Or at least she could make enough money—as the paid school mascot and in-demand Bar Mitzvah hype woman—to get her hair and nails done, so then she might get a boyfriend.

None of that worked (and she’s still single), but it allowed Tiffany to imagine a place for herself where she could do something she loved for a living: comedy.

Tiffany can’t avoid being funny—it’s just who she is, whether she’s plotting shocking, jaw-dropping revenge on an ex-boyfriend or learning how to handle her newfound fame despite still having a broke person’s mindset. Finally poised to become a household name, she recounts with heart and humor how she came from nothing and nowhere to achieve her dreams by owning, sharing, and using her pain to heal others.

By turns hilarious, filthy, and brutally honest, The Last Black Unicorn shows the world who Tiffany Haddish really is—humble, grateful, down-to-earth, and funny as hell. And now, she’s ready to inspire others through the power of laughter

Hope Never DiesHope Never Dies (Obama Biden Mysteries #1)
(Obama Biden Mysteries #1)
by Andrew Shaffer

This mystery thriller reunites Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama for a political mashup full of suspense, intrigue, and laugh out loud bromance.

Vice President Joe Biden is fresh out of the Obama White House and feeling adrift when his favorite railroad conductor dies in a suspicious accident, leaving behind an ailing wife and a trail of clues. To unravel the mystery, “Amtrak Joe” re-teams with the only man he’s ever fully trusted—the 44th president of the United States. Together they’ll plumb the darkest corners of Delaware, traveling from cheap motels to biker bars and beyond, as they uncover the sinister forces advancing America’s opioid epidemic.

Part noir thriller and part bromance novel, Hope Never Dies is essentially the first published work of Obama/Biden fanfiction—and a cathartic read for anyone distressed by the current state of affairs

BEST NONFICTION

I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

by 

Michelle McNamara,Gillian Flynn Patton Oswalt 
Published posthumously, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is Michelle McNamara’s nonfiction account of her journey to unmask The Golden State Killer—a serial killer who wreaked havoc in California in the 1970s and ’80s. This book is meticulously researched, as McNamara spent years putting together the pieces of this tragic, true-crime puzzle that ultimately eluded her grasp. The silver lining? Her book created renewed interest in the case that may have helped lead to an arrest.
A masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer—the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade—from Michelle McNamara, the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case.

“You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark.”

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called “the Golden State Killer.” McNamara pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by her husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by McNamara’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may, at last, unmask the Golden State Killer.

BEST HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY
The Good Neighbor by Maxwell King
The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

by 

Maxwell King
The first full-length biography of Fred Rogers, the beloved creator, and star of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, easily won the award for Best History & Biography. Maxwell King, a former journalist who now leads the nonprofit Pittsburgh Foundation, offers a view of the children’s champion that is both a feel-good tribute and a look into Rogers’ commitment to making the world a better place.
Fred Rogers (1928–2003) was an enormously influential figure in the history of television and in the lives of tens of millions of children. As the creator and star of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he was a champion of compassion, equality, and kindness. Rogers was fiercely devoted to children and to taking their fears, concerns, and questions about the world seriously.

The Good Neighbor, the first full-length biography of Fred Rogers, tells the story of this utterly unique and enduring American icon. Drawing on original interviews, oral histories, and archival documents, Maxwell King traces Rogers’s personal, professional, and artistic life through decades of work, including a surprising decision to walk away from the show to make television for adults, only to return to the neighborhood with increasingly sophisticated episodes, written in collaboration with experts on childhood development. An engaging story, rich in detail, The Good Neighbor is the definitive portrait of a beloved figure, cherished by multiple generations.

Robin

Robin by Dave Itzkoff

From New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff, the definitive biography of Robin Williams – a compelling portrait of one of America’s most beloved and misunderstood entertainers.

From his rapid-fire stand-up comedy riffs to his breakout role in Mork & Mindy and his Academy Award-winning performance in Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams was a singularly innovative and beloved entertainer. He often came across as a man possessed, holding forth on culture and politics while mixing in personal revelations – all with mercurial, tongue-twisting intensity as he inhabited and shed one character after another with lightning speed.

But as Dave Itzkoff shows in this revelatory biography, Williams’s comic brilliance masked a deep well of conflicting emotions and self-doubt, which he drew upon in his comedy and in celebrated films like Dead Poets Society; Good Morning, Vietnam; The Fisher King; Aladdin; and Mrs. Doubtfire, where he showcased his limitless gift for improvisation to bring to life a wide range of characters. And in Good Will Hunting he gave an intense and controlled performance that revealed the true range of his talent.

Itzkoff also shows how Williams struggled mightily with addiction and depression – topics he discussed openly while performing and during interviews – and with a debilitating condition at the end of his life that affected him in ways his fans never knew. Drawing on more than a hundred original interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, as well as extensive archival research, Robin is a fresh and original look at a man whose work touched so many lives.

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston,Deborah G. Plant

A major literary event: a newly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, with a foreword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade—abducted from Africa on the last “Black Cargo” ship to arrive in the United States.

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.

In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo’s past—memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.

Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo’s unique vernacular, and written from Hurston’s perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.

BEST SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Stephen Brusatte
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World by Stephen Brusatte
While many of this year’s nominees looked to the future, Steve Brusatte wins Best Science & Technology with his engaging exploration of the distant past. In The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, the paleontologist traces the evolution of the majestic prehistoric creatures, interspersing the scientific narrative with his own stories of globe-trotting expeditions and remarkable discoveries.The dinosaurs. Sixty-six million years ago, the Earth’s most fearsome creatures vanished. Today they remain one of our planet’s great mysteries. Now The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs reveals their extraordinary, 200-million-year-long story as never before.

In this captivating narrative (enlivened with more than seventy original illustrations and photographs), Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field—naming fifteen new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork—masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy. Captivating and revelatory, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a book for the ages.

Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers—themselves the beneficiaries of a mass extinction caused by volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the Triassic period—into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex,Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. This gifted scientist and writer re-creates the dinosaurs’ peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth’s history, one full of lessons for today as we confront a “sixth extinction.”

Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research—which he calls “a new golden age of discovery”—and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors from China.

An electrifying scientific history that unearths the dinosaurs’ epic saga, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be a definitive and treasured account for decades to come.

Brief Answers to the Big Questions
Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking was the most renowned scientist since Einstein, known both for his groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology and for his mischievous sense of humor. He educated millions of readers about the origins of the universe and the nature of black holes and inspired millions more by defying a terrifying early prognosis of ALS, which originally gave him only two years to live. In later life,he could communicate only by using a few facial muscles, but he continued to advance his field and serve as a revered voice on social and humanitarian issues.

Hawking not only unraveled some of the universe’s greatest mysteries but also believed science plays a critical role in fixing problems here on Earth. Now, as we face immense challenges on our planet—including climate change, the threat of nuclear war, and the development of artificial intelligence—he turns his attention to the most urgent issues facing us.

Will humanity survive? Should we colonize space? Does God exist? These are just a few of the questions Hawking addresses in this wide-ranging, passionately argued final book from one of the greatest minds in history.

Featuring a foreword by Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar for playing Stephen Hawking, an introduction by Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, and an afterword from Hawking’s daughter, Lucy, Brief Answers to the Big Questions is a brilliant last message to the world

BEST FOOD & COOKBOOKS
Cravings by Chrissy Teigen
Cravings: Hungry for More

by Chrissy Teigen,Adeena Sussman
Another year, another win for Chrissy Teigen, who takes home her second Goodreads Choice Award in the Food & Cookbooks category for Cravings: Hungry for More. Teigen was awarded the same title two years ago, for the first book in the series, simply titled Cravings. This follow-up cookbook is chock full of tried-and-true recipes, as well as a few unexpected takes on modern classics (Pad Thai Carbonara, anyone?).
Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering Joanna GainesMagnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering

Magnolia Table is infused with Joanna Gaines’ warmth and passion for all things family, prepared and served straight from the heart of her home, with recipes inspired by dozens of Gaines family favorites and classic comfort selections from the couple’s new Waco restaurant, Magnolia Table.

Jo believes there’s no better way to celebrate family and friendship than through the art of togetherness, celebrating tradition, and sharing a great meal. Magnolia Table includes 125 classic recipes—from breakfast, lunch, and dinner to small plates, snacks, and desserts—presenting a modern selection of American classics and personal family favorites. Complemented by her love for her garden, these dishes also incorporate homegrown, seasonal produce at the peak of its flavor. Inside Magnolia Table, you’ll find recipes the whole family will enjoy, such as:

Chicken Pot Pie
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Asparagus and Fontina Quiche
Brussels Sprouts with Crispy Bacon, Toasted Pecans, and Balsamic Reduction
Peach Caprese
Overnight French Toast
White Cheddar Bisque
Fried Chicken with Sticky Poppy Seed Jam
Lemon Pie
Mac and Cheese
Full of personal stories and beautiful photos, Magnolia Table is an invitation to share a seat at the table with Joanna Gaines and her family.

Tasty Latest and Greatest: Everything You Want to Cook Right Now (an Official Tasty Cookbook)

Tasty Latest and Greatest: Everything You Want to Cook Right Now (an Official Tasty Cookbook) by Tasty
Tasty, Buzzfeed’s popular cooking brand, delivers both comforting and healthy weeknight dinners for meat-lovers, vegetarians, and vegans alike, plus treats like ice cream, chocolate desserts, and rainbow recipes galore. You’ve been mesmerized by their top down recipe videos, but there’s still something about having a tangible album of edible deliciousness at your fingertips. Enter: TASTY LATEST & GREATEST. This cookbook is just that: 80+ winning recipes, anointed by fans like you, that have risen to the top of the heap, powered by likes and comments and shares and smiles and full bellies. They represent how you’re cooking today. Whether it’s a trend-driven dish like a pastel glitter-bombed unicorn cake or a classic like lasagna, every recipe has staying power. Now you can deliver on the promise of a great dish whenever the urge strikes. Get ready–your cooking is about to go viral.
BEST GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS
Ms. Marvel, Vol. 8: MeccaMs. Marvel, Vol. 8 by G. Willow Wilson
(Ms. Marvel (Collected Editions) #8)by G. Willow Wilson 
The villains are at Kamala’s door, and Ms. Marvel has to save a city that doesn’t want saving. The malleable Ms. Marvel continues her hero’s journey as an enemy from her past begins targeting those closest to her, a challenge that calls into question everything about her — not just as a superhero, but as a human being! Who can Ms. Marvel trust when everyone in Jersey City is against her? As Kamala’s life hangs in the balance, a new crimefighter moves in on her turf. Plus: Bruno may be far away at a prestigious school in Wakanda, but even thousands of miles from his former best friend, Kamala Khan, adventure still finds him!
Black Bolt, Vol. 1: Hard Time(Black Bolt (Collected Editions) #1)by Saladin Ahmed Black Bolt, Vol. 1: Hard Time

The silent king of the Inhumans stars in his first-ever solo series! But it begins with Black Bolt…imprisoned?! Where exactly is he? Why has he been jailed? And who could be powerful enough to hold the uncanny Black Bolt? The answers to both will shock you -and Black Bolt as well! For if he is to learn the truth, he must first win a fight to the death with a fellow inmate -the Absorbing Man! Award-winning science fiction writer Saladin Ahmed (Throne of the Crescent Moon) crafts a story as trippy as it is action-packed, with truly mind-bending art from the one-and-only Christian Ward (ODY-C)!

BEST POETRY
The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One by Amanda Lovelace
The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One

by 

Amanda Lovelace
Poet Amanda Lovelace wins her second Goodreads Choice Award for the latest book in her Women Are Some Kind of Magic series: The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One (the follow-up to the 2016 Best Poetry winner, The Princess Saves Herself in This One). Her latest collection focuses on the idea of an indestructible witch who has the power to take on her enemies. Something tells us she overcomes her oppressors.
The Poet X

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo 
A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. A debut novel of renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo.

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.

So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent

Useless Magic: Lyrics and Poetry
Florence WelchRelated image
Lyrics and never-before-seen poetry and sketches from the iconic vocalist of Florence and the Machine

Songs can be incredibly prophetic, like subconscious warnings or messages to myself, but I often don’t know what I’m trying to say till years later. Or a prediction comes true and I couldn’t do anything to stop it, so it seems like a kind of useless magic.

BEST DEBUT AUTHOR
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Children of Blood and Bone- Tomi Adeyemi
They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.

Now we rise.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.

BEST YOUNG ADULT FICTION
Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli Leah on the Offbeat (Creekwood, #2)
Leah Burke—girl-band drummer, master of deadpan, and Simon Spier’s best friend from the award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda—takes center stage in this novel of first love and senior-year angst.

When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat—but real life isn’t always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she’s the only child of a young, single mom, and her life is decidedly less privileged. She loves to draw but is too self-conscious to show it. And even though her mom knows she’s bisexual, she hasn’t mustered the courage to tell her friends—not even her openly gay BFF, Simon.

So Leah really doesn’t know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It’s hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting—especially when she realizes she might love one of them more than she ever intended

BEST YOUNG ADULT FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION
Kingdom of Ash(Throne of Glass #7)Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)
by

Sarah J. Maas
Years in the making, Sarah J. Maas’s #1 New York Times bestselling Throne of Glass series draws to an epic, unforgettable conclusion. Aelin Galathynius’s journey from slave to king’s assassin to the queen of a once-great kingdom reaches its heart-rending finale as war erupts across her world. . .

Aelin has risked everything to save her people―but at a tremendous cost. Locked within an iron coffin by the Queen of the Fae, Aelin must draw upon her fiery will as she endures months of torture. Aware that yielding to Maeve will doom those she loves keeps her from breaking, though her resolve begins to unravel with each passing day…

With Aelin captured, Aedion and Lysandra remain the last line of defense to protect Terrasen from utter destruction. Yet they soon realize that the many allies they’ve gathered to battle Erawan’s hordes might not be enough to save them. Scattered across the continent and racing against time, Chaol, Manon, and Dorian are forced to forge their own paths to meet their fates. Hanging in the balance is any hope of salvation―and a better world.

And across the sea, his companions unwavering beside him, Rowan hunts to find his captured wife and queen―before she is lost to him forever.

As the threads of fate weave together at last, all must fight, if they are to have a chance at a future. Some bonds will grow even deeper, while others will be severed forever in the explosive final chapter of the Throne of Glass series.

The Belles(The Belles #1)by Dhonielle ClaytonThe Belles (The Belles #1)

Camellia Beauregard is a Belle. In the opulent world of Orléans, Belles are revered, for they control Beauty, and Beauty is a commodity coveted above all else. In Orléans, the people are born gray, they are born damned, and only with the help of a Belle and her talents can they transform and be made beautiful.

But it’s not enough for Camellia to be just a Belle. She wants to be the favorite—the Belle chosen by the Queen of Orléans to live in the royal palace, to tend to the royal family and their court, to be recognized as the most talented Belle in the land. But once Camellia and her Belle sisters arrive at court, it becomes clear that being the favorite is not everything she always dreamed it would be. Behind the gilded palace walls live dark secrets, and Camellia soon learns that the very essence of her existence is a lie—that her powers are far greater, and could be more dangerous than she ever imagined. And when the queen asks Camellia to risk her own life and help the ailing princess by using Belle powers in unintended ways, Camellia now faces an impossible decision.

With the future of Orléans and its people at stake, Camellia must decide—save herself and her sisters and the way of the Belles—or resuscitate the princess, risk her own life, and change the ways of her world forever

BEST MIDDLE GRADE & CHILDREN’S

The Burning Maze by Rick Riordans
The Burning Maze by Rick Riordan 
The gods have spoken. For the last eight years, the young demigods from Rick Riordan’s bestselling fantasy series have dominated the Best Middle-Grade category. Scorching the competition this year is Riordan’s The Burning Maze, which is the latest installment in The Trials of Apollo series.The formerly glorious god Apollo, cast down to earth in punishment by Zeus, is now an awkward mortal teenager named Lester Papadopoulos. In order to regain his place on Mount Olympus, Lester must restore five Oracles that have gone dark. But he has to achieve this impossible task without having any godly powers and while being duty-bound to a confounding young daughter of Demeter named Meg. Thanks a lot, Dad.

With the help of some demigod friends, Lester managed to survive his first two trials, one at Camp Half-Blood, and one in Indianapolis, where Meg received the Dark Prophecy. The words she uttered while seated on the Throne of Memory revealed that an evil triumvirate of Roman emperors plans to attack Camp Jupiter. While Leo flies ahead on Festus to warn the Roman camp, Lester and Meg must go through the Labyrinth to find the third emperor—and an Oracle who speaks in word puzzles—somewhere in the American Southwest. There is one glimmer of hope in the gloom-filled prophecy: The cloven guide alone the way does know. They will have a satyr companion, and Meg knows just who to call upon. …

Willa of the Wood(Willa #1)by Robert BeattyWilla of the Wood (Willa, #1)

Move without a sound. Steal without a trace.

Willa, a young night-spirit, is her clan’s best thief. She creeps into the cabins of the day-folk under cover of darkness and takes what they won’t miss. It’s dangerous work–the day-folk kill whatever they don’t understand–but Willa will do anything to win the approval of the padaran, the charismatic leader of the Faeran people.

When Willa’s curiosity leaves her hurt and stranded in the day-folk world, she calls upon the old powers of her beloved grandmother, and the unbreakable bonds of her forest allies, to escape. Only then does she begin to discover the shocking truth: that not all of her day-folk enemies are the same, and that the foundations of her own Faeran society are crumbling. What do you do when you realize that the society you were born and raised in is rife with evil? Do you raise your voice? Do you stand up against it?

As forces of unfathomable destruction encroach on her forest home, Willa must decide who she truly is, facing deadly force with the warmest compassion, sinister corruption with trusted alliance, and finding a home for her longing heart

Amal UnboundAmal Unbound
Aisha Saeed
Life is quiet and ordinary in Amal’s Pakistani village, but she had no complaints, and besides, she’s busy pursuing her dream of becoming a teacher one day. Her dreams are temporarily dashed when—as the eldest daughter—she must stay home from school to take care of her siblings. Amal is upset, but she doesn’t lose hope and finds ways to continue learning. Then the unimaginable happens—after an accidental run-in with the son of her village’s corrupt landlord, Amal must work as his family’s servant to pay off her own family’s debt.

Life at the opulent Khan estate is full of heartbreak and struggle for Amal—especially when she inadvertently makes an enemy of a girl named Nabila. Most troubling, though, is Amal’s growing awareness of the Khans’ nefarious dealings. When it becomes clear just how far they will go to protect their interests, Amal realizes she will have to find a way to work with others if they are ever to exact change in a cruel status quo, and if Amal is ever to achieve her dreams

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl
The Miscalculations of Lightning Girlby
Stacy McAnulty
Lucy Callahan was struck by lightning. She doesn’t remember it, but it changed her life forever. The zap gave her genius-level math skills, and ever since, Lucy has been homeschooled. Now, at 12 years old, she’s technically ready for college. She just has to pass 1 more test — middle school!

Lucy’s grandma insists: Go to middle school for 1 year. Make 1 friend. Join 1 activity. And read 1 book (that’s not a math textbook!). Lucy’s not sure what a girl who does calculus homework for fun can possibly learn in 7th grade. She has everything she needs at home, where nobody can make fun of her rigid routines or her superpowered brain. The equation of Lucy’s life has already been solved. Unless there’s been a miscalculation?

A celebration of friendship, Stacy McAnulty’s smart and thoughtful middle-grade debut reminds us all to get out of our comfort zones and embrace what makes us different.

BEST PICTURE BOOKS
I Am Enough by Grace Byers
I Am Enough

by

Grace Byers,
Empire actress Grace Byers and illustrator Keturah A. Bobo swept the Best Picture Books category with I Am Enough. A touching ode to kindness and self-love, this warm and lyrical tale beat A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo and We Don’t Eat Our Classmates.
This is a gorgeous, lyrical ode to loving who you are, respecting others, and being kind to one another—from Empire actor and activist Grace Byers and talented newcomer artist Keturah A. Bobo.

This is the perfect gift for mothers and daughters, baby showers, and graduation.

We are all here for a purpose. We are more than enough. We just need to believe it

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo
A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundoby 
Jill Twiss
HBO’s Emmy-winning Last Week Tonight with John Oliver presents a picture book about a Very Special boy bunny who falls in love with another boy bunny.

Meet Marlon Bundo, a lonely bunny who lives with his Grampa, Mike Pence – the Vice President of the United States. But on this Very Special Day, Marlon’s life is about to change forever…

With its message of tolerance and advocacy, this charming children’s book explores issues of same-sex marriage and democracy. Sweet, funny, and beautifully illustrated, this book is dedicated to every bunny who has ever felt different

Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History Vashti Harrison
Featuring forty trailblazing black women in American history, Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of breaking boundaries and achieving beyond expectations. Illuminating text paired with irresistible illustrations bring to life both iconic and lesser-known female figures of Black history such as abolitionist Sojourner Truth, pilot Bessie Coleman, chemist Alice Ball, politician Shirley Chisholm, mathematician Katherine Johnson, poet Maya Angelou, and filmmaker Julie Dash. Among these biographies, readers will find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things – bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come. Whether they were putting pen to paper, soaring through the air or speaking up for the rights of others, the women profiled in these pages were all taking a stand against a world that didn’t always accept them. The leaders in this book may be little, but they all did something big and amazing, inspiring generations to come
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Famous People who have a mental illness

Anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and other mental health disorders affect all people—even the ones we idolize. In an effort to bring awareness and promote acceptance, see what these stars have to say about their own struggles with mental health.

In fact, when public figures open up about their own mental health struggles, it can help break down stigma, spark important discussions, and even inspire people to seek treatment.

Karamo BrownImage result for Karamo Brown

The Queer Eye star told Instagram followersOpens a New Window. in August 2018 that he had attempted suicide 12 years prior. “You know, I was in a very dark place,” he said. “I just felt like life could not get any better, everything that was happening to me was never going to change, and I tried to take my own life … I want you all to know that as you see me on Queer Eye helping people with their mental health, it’s because it’s important to me … because I know so many of us suffer from mental health issues, and we just don’t know where to turn.”

Stephen ColbertImage result for stephen colbert

The late-night comedian revealed his struggles with anxiety in an August 2018 interview with Rolling StoneOpens a New Window., saying that performing eases his mind now just as it did decades ago when he was performing improv with Second City. “Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel,” he said. “And I haven’t stopped since. Even when I was a writer, I always had to be in front of a camera a little bit. I have to perform.”

Janet Jackson

In June 2018, the “Rhythm Nation” singer wrote in an Essence essay that she has grappled with depression in her life. “When it comes to happiness, I’m no expert,” she said. “I have only my life experience as a guide. I’ve known great happiness and great sadness.”

David Harbour

Image result for david harbour

In a June 2018 interview on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, the Stranger Things star revealed he was hospitalized in a “mental asylum” after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 25. He also discussed his own brand of self-care: “Generally, people are like, ‘I need to meditate more’ or ‘I need to get into yoga.’ And I need to, like, eat a cheeseburger and just, like, smoke cigarettes and hang out. So if I write the self-help book, it’s going to be like, ‘Sit on the couch and play some video games.

Jim CarreyRelated image

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind actor has said he took Prozac “for a long time” while battling depression. “It may have helped me out of a jam for a little bit, but people stay on it forever. I had to get off at a certain point because I realized that, you know, everything’s just okay,” he told CBS News in 2009. “There are peaks, there are valleys. But they’re all kind of carved and smoothed out, and it feels like a low level of despair you live in.”

Emma ThompsonImage result for emma thompson

The Oscar-winning Brit has admitted to suffering bouts of clinical depression at various times throughout her life. In 2010, she announced that she was taking a sabbatical to focus on her own well-being. “I find the job I do emotionally very demanding,” she said in a statement. “I suffer from occasional mild depression, which I think is a very common thing.

Zach BraffImage result for zach braff

The Scrubs star told Parade magazine in 2007 that he felt a kinship to his somewhat melancholy character in Garden State (which he wrote and directed). “I think I suffer from some mild depression,” he explained. “So to have millions of people go, ‘I watched your movie and related,’ was the ultimate affirmation that I’m not a freak.

Rene RussoRelated image

The Outbreak star revealed on The Queen Latifah Show in October 2014 that she has bipolar disorder and takes medication for the condition. “For all the people that are having trouble and maybe feel bad about taking medication… it’s okay — you will make it through,” she said. “It’s not easy but you will make it through.”

Tyler BaltierraImage result for Tyler Baltierra

After revealing his bipolar diagnosis in April 2018, the Teen Mom OG star described his experience with the disorder in a July 2018 Snapchat. “Bi-Polar is like dancing on the edge of a cliff,” he wrote.

“The good moods are full of endless euphoric adrenaline, but the bad moods cause a reclusive crash with an abusive rift when there’s just too much emotions to go through & sift, which makes you trip down a long hard fall when you slip after you lose that grip once that adrenaline filled dance inevitably makes you tip.”

Sarah HylandImage result for Sarah Hyland

The Modern Family actress revealed in December 2018 that she had suicidal thoughts after she underwent two kidney transplants amid her battle with kidney dysplasia.

“I would write letters in my head to loved ones of why I did it and my reasoning behind it, how it was nobody’s fault. I didn’t want to write it down on paper because I didn’t want anybody to find it. That’s how serious I was,” Hyland told Ellen DeGeneres in January 2019 about contemplating suicide. “I was very, very, very close.”

Chrissy Teigen

 Chrissy Teigen-postpartum depression

The model and “Lip Sync Battle” co-host opened up about the myriad ways PPD took a toll on her mental and physical health.

“I also just didn’t think it could happen to me. I have a great life. I have all the help I could need: John, my mother (who lives with us), a nanny. But postpartum does not discriminate,

“I couldn’t control it. And that’s part of the reason it took me so long to speak up: I felt selfish, icky, and weird saying aloud that I’m struggling. Sometimes I still do.”

“I’m speaking up now because I want people to know it can happen to anybody and I don’t want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone.”

Michelle Williams

 

“When I disclosed it to our manager at the time, bless his heart, he was like, ‘Y’all just signed a multimillion-dollar deal and you’re about to go on tour. What do you have to be depressed about?’ So I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m just tired,'” she said of the depression she experienced during her time with Destiny’s Child during an appearance on CBS’s The Talk. “I was to that place where it got so dark and heavy because sometimes you feel like, ‘I’m the provider, I take care of people. I’m not supposed to be feeling this way. What do I do?’ And I wanted out.

 

BeyoncéImage result for Beyoncé

“My mother was very persistent and she kept saying that I had to take care of my mental health.”

“It was beginning to get fuzzy―I couldn’t even tell which day or which city I was at.

I would sit there at ceremonies and they would give me an award and I was just thinking about the next performance,

Prince Harry Image result for prince harry

Prince Harry spoke to a therapist about his mental health after two years of “total chaos” in his late twenties.

Harry  “shut down all his emotions” for almost two decades after the death of his mother, Princess Diana. It wasn’t until he was 28 years old — during a period of time when he felt “very close to a complete breakdown” and faced anxiety during royal engagements — that he began to see a professional to address his grief. Now 33 and “in a good place,” Harry has encouraged others to open up about their own struggles. In 2016, he started the Heads Together campaign with Prince William and his sister in law  Kate Middleton to help “end the stigma around mental health issues.”

“The experience that I have is that once you start talking about it, you suddenly realize that actually, you’re part of quite a big club,

“I’ve spent most of my life saying

‘I’m fine, can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12 and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but also my work as well…I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions.”

DwayneJohnsonImage result for Dwayne Johnson

His freshman year of college, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson experienced his “first of three depressions.”

“I didn’t know what it was,”

 “I didn’t know why I didn’t want to do anything. I had never experienced anything like that.”

Johnson later shared what helped him cope. “I found that, with depression, one of the most important things you could realize is that you’re not alone,”

“You’re not the first to go through it. You’re not going to be the last to go through it … I wish I had someone at that time who could just pull me aside and [say], ‘Hey, it’s gonna be OK. It’ll be OK.'”

Demi Lovato

 Demi Lovato-bipolar disorder

An outspoken advocate for mental health awareness, Demi Lovato is open about her battles with bipolar disorder, bulimia, and addiction.

During that time, Lovato learned coping skills and adopted ways to control and understand her emotions. “For the first time in my life, I started to feel,” she said. Currently, Lovato is the celebrity spokesperson for Be Vocal: Speak Up for Mental Health campaign.

Demi has produced a documentary about mental health called “Beyond Silence,” released a documentary about her own struggles, shared powerful side-by-side photos of her recovery from bulimia, and entered rehab to address her substance abuse issues.

“It’s very important we create conversations, we take away the stigma, and that we stand up for ourselves if we’re dealing with the symptoms of a mental illness,”

The singer, now five years sober, continued: “It is possible to live well and thrive with a mental illness.”

After her management team had expressed their intentions to leave her, Lovato agreed to resume treatment and counseling for her addictions, leading to her move to a sober-living facility in Los Angeles with roommates and responsibilities to help her overcome her drug and alcohol problems.

On June 21, 2018, Lovato released “Sober” in which she revealed she had relapsed after six years of sobriety.

On July 24, 2018, she was rushed to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after emergency services were called to her home due to an opioid overdose. She was reported to be stable and recovering later in the day. Lovato was reported to have overdosed on oxycodone laced with fentanyl and was revived with naloxone. She was hospitalized for two weeks and subsequently entered an in-patient rehab facility. In December 2018, Lovato took to Twitter to dismiss rumors about her overdose and went on to thank her fans, writing: “If I feel like the world needs to know something, I will tell them MYSELF. All my fans need to know is I’m working hard on myself, I’m happy and clean and I’m SO grateful for their support.”She went on to add that someday she’ll “tell the world what exactly happened, why it happened and what my life is like today.. but until I’m ready to share that with people please stop prying and making up shit that you know nothing about. I still need space and time to heal.

Glenn CloseImage result for glenn close

“I felt this inertia that would come over me,” she told Mashable.

“You think of something and it just seems too much, too hard. That’s how it manifested in me.

Katy PerryImage result for katy perry

“I wrote a song about it,” she said in a live stream in 2017.

“I feel ashamed that I would have those thoughts, feel that low and that depressed.”

Image result for chris evansChris Evans,

Chris Evans, who struggles with social anxiety, once said he suffers from “a noisy brain.”

Chris Evans  revealed how his anxiety often kicks in during premieres, equating red carpet events to “30 minutes of walking on hot coals.” Evans, who has tried everything from meditating to reading Buddhist texts to calm his mind, said he’s “gotten better” but still has moments of self-doubt when he overanalyzes things.

“I don’t knock L.A.,” the actor told Rolling Stone in 2016.

“But L.A. is where I come to work, where I have meetings and, unfortunately, where I feel moments of anxiety.

Sometimes L.A. is great. And sometimes you just drive down Sunset like, ‘Ugh. Fuckin’ Hollywood.'”

Miley CyrusImage result for miley cyrus

“So many people look at [my depression] as me being ungrateful, but that is not it—I can’t help it,” the singer told Tavi Gevinson in a 2014 interview for Elle.

“There’s not much that I’m closed off about, and the universe gave me all that so I could help people feel like they don’t have to be something they’re not or feel like they have to fake happy.

There’s nothing worse than being fake happy

Lisa Nicole Carson

Lisa Nicole Carson opened up about her battle with bipolar disorder, which sidelined her career for over a decade.

The actress shot to fame in the ’90s for her roles in hit TV shows “Ally McBeal” and “ER.” But after she was diagnosed in the early ’00s, Carson decided to take a break from Hollywood to focus on her mental health.

“I see a psychiatrist and a psychologist regularly and now just take anti-anxiety medication,”

“I’m tackling the myth that African-American women have to be pillars of strength. We have the right to fall. We have the right not to always have our s— together.”

Dakota JohnsonImage result for dakota johnson

“Sometimes I panic to the point where I don’t know what I’m thinking or doing. I have a full anxiety attack….

I have them all the time anyway, but with auditioning it’s bad. I’m so terrified of it,” said of her anxiety.

 

“Sometimes I panic to the point where I don’t know what I’m thinking or doing,” the 50 Shades actress told AnOther in 2015.

“I have a full anxiety attack. I have them all the time anyway, but with auditioning it’s bad.”

 

Ryan ReynoldsRelated image

Ryan Reynolds has credited his wife, Blake Likely, for helping him cope with his anxiety.

Not only did Lively convince Reynolds to take his “dream role” in “Deadpool,” she also kept him grounded while he filmed the movie.

Ryan revealed how his anxiety over disappointing fans led him to “stay up late with the script” and lose sleep. “[Lively] helped me through that,” Reynolds said. “I’m lucky to have her around.

“By the time we were in post [production], we’d been to Comic-Con, and people went crazy for it. The expectations were eating me alive.”

Cara DelevingneImage result for cara delevingne

Cara Delevingne struggled with depression as a teenager.

Cara said that she used to feel guilty for being depressed. But after she realized she wasn’t alone — that “everyone goes through similar things” — she began to recover.

“I was so ashamed of how I felt because I had such a privileged upbringing,” she said on This Morning. “I’m very lucky. But I had depression. I had moments where I didn’t want to carry on living. But then the guilt of feeling that way and not being able to tell anyone because I shouldn’t feel that way just left me feeling blame and guilt.”

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Kendrick LamarImage result for kendrick lamar

Kendrick Lamar got candid about his mental health back in 2015.

“If you learn to love yourself and not give in to what other people think about you or not care what they think, and just follow your dreams, you can achieve anything” Delevingne said. “And that’s what I want to be for teenagers — not necessarily a role model, but someone who has gone through it and come out the other side.”

That year, the Grammy Award-winning artist revealed his struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts in his album, “To Pimp a Butterfly.” On the emotional track “u,” for example, Kendrick raps about the survivor’s guilt he feels for leaving his hometown of Compton, California, where many of his friends and family still remain.

“Three of my homeboys [one] summer was murdered,” Kendrick told MTV in an interview about the album.

He continued: “You living this life, you know what I’m saying, but you still have to face realities of this … I gotta get back off that tour bus and go to these funerals.”

Gina RodriguezImage result for Gina Rodriguez

In May, in light of Mental Health Awareness Month, Gina Rodriguez revealed she struggles with anxiety in a heartfelt message on social media.

 In the clip, Rodriguez can be seen in casual clothes, not wearing any makeup. “It’s always great to be in front of his lens but this time it was just me,” the actress wrote in the caption. “Bare and exposed in the streets of LA.”

“I suffer from anxiety,” Rodriguez said. She continued: “And watching this clip I could see how anxious I was but I empathize with myself.

I wanted to protect her and tell her it’s OK to be anxious, there is nothing different or strange about having anxiety and I will prevail. I like watching this video. It makes me uncomfortable but there is a freedom I feel, maybe even an acceptance. This is me. Puro Gina.”

 Lili ReinhartImage result for lili reinhart

 Lili Reinhart opened up about her depression in a series of honest tweets.

“‘Riverdale’ came into my life when I was going through the worst depression I had ever experienced,” the actress wrote. “And in the end it completely saved me.”

The 21-year-old star, who called mental health “a priority,” continued with a positive message for her followers: “To anyone out there who feels depressed or hopeless … do not f—— give up on yourself. You’re all you’ve got. And you deserve the world … You will get through whatever you’re going through now. And you’ll be so much stronger at the end of it. You’re stronger than you know.”

 

Gabourey SidibeRelated image

Gabourey Sidibe talks candidly about mental health in her memoir, “This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare.”

She reveals how she struggled with depression in college and eventually developed bulimia. After experiencing suicidal thoughts, the Oscar nominee turned to a professional for help.

“I just accepted depression as something that’s part of my anatomy,” “It’s part of my chemistry, it’s part of my biology.” She continued: “When it’s too big for me to just turn around on my own, I see a therapist.”

Wayne Brady described his battle with depression and “constant self-doubt” in 2014.

“People are like, ‘Wayne Brady’s always happy!'” he said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight (ET). “No, I’m not,” he continued. “Because I’m human.”

The comedian and “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” star talked candidly about the debilitating effects of depression.

“You don’t want to move, you can’t move in the darkness,” he explained.

“You’re like, ‘I am just going to sit right here and I want to wallow in this. As much as it hurts, I am going to sit right here because this is what I deserve.

This is what I deserve, so I am going to sit here because I am that horrible of a person.'”

Shannon PurserImage result for Shannon Purser

“I had a really, really bad case of it,” the Stranger Things actress said in a 2017 People interview. “Everybody hears OCD and they think, ‘Okay, you like to clean or be organized.’ That’s really not what it is, especially not for everybody.”

Catherine Zeta-JonesImage result for Catherine Zeta-Jones

“If my revelation of having bipolar II has encouraged one person to seek help, then it is worth it,” the actress told People in 2011. There is no need to suffer silently and there is no shame in seeking help.”

Brooke ShieldsImage result for Brooke Shields

“I couldn’t bear the sound of Rowan crying, and I dreaded the moments my husband would bring her to me,” the model wrote in a 2005 New York Times op-ed about her postpartum depression. I wanted her to disappear. I wanted to disappear. At my lowest points, I thought of swallowing a bottle of pills or jumping out the window of my apartment.”

Britney SpearsImage result for Britney Spears

“I moved to Los Angeles when I was very young,” the singer told Marie Claire UK in 2016. “I was so under scrutiny. If a hair was out of place, I’d be so anxious. I would get very anxious about so many things.”

Emma StoneImage result for emma stone

Emma Stone has detailed her experiences with anxiety and therapy on several occasions.

“I was a very, very, very anxious child, and I had a lot of panic attacks,” Stone said on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in September.

The actress also shared a photo of a “little green monster” she had drawn to represent her anxiety when she was 9 years old.

“If I listen to [the monster] enough, it crushes me,” the Oscar winner explained to Rolling Stone in 2016.

“But if I turn my head and keep doing what I’m doing — let it speak to me, but don’t give it the credit it needs — then it shrinks down and fades away.”

The “La La Land” star credits therapy, acting, and improv for helping her cope with anxiety. “You have to be present in improv, and that’s the antithesis of anxiety,” she told Rolling Stone.

James Franco

James Franco opened up about his history of addiction and depression in August.

James Franco opened up about his history of addiction and depression in August.

“I have a very addictive personality,” the actor told Out Magazine.

After he “got over certain addictions” as a teenager, Franco threw himself into acting when he was 17. But ten years later, the actor realized he was depressed. “On the surface, my life [seemed] pretty good,” Franco recalled. “But I [felt] isolated and lonely.”

Kesha

In November, Kesha penned a personal essay for TIME to help people with mental illness get through the holiday season.

In November, Kesha penned a personal essay for TIME to help people with mental illness get through the holiday season.

“The holiday season is supposed to be the most festive and fun time of the year but sometimes it can quickly become a stressful and emotional time …

This is especially true for those of us who struggle with mental illness,” the singer wrote. Kesha, who entered rehab for an eating disorder in 2014, also urged readers to take a break from “trying to … [please] everyone else” and be kind to themselves.

Jon Hamm,

Jon Hamm, who has struggled with addiction and chronic depression, opened up about the benefits of therapy in June.

Jon Hamm, who has struggled with addiction and chronic depression, opened up about the benefits of therapy in June.

In an interview with InStyle, the “Mad Men” actor talked about the importance of asking for help when you need it: “Medical attention is medical attention whether it’s for your elbow or for your teeth or for your brain.

We live in a world where to admit anything negative about yourself is seen as a weakness when it’s actually a strength. It’s not a weak move to say, ‘I need help.’ In the long run, it’s way better, because you have to fix it.”

Hamm, who completed a 30-day program for alcohol abuse in 2015, has also talked about the benefits of therapy and antidepressants in his battle with chronic depression.

Kid Cudi

In 2016, Kid Cudi got candid about his mental health struggles on Facebook.

In 2016, Kid Cudi got candid about his mental health struggles on Facebook.

In a heartfelt message to his fans, the rapper revealed that he had checked himself into rehab for “depression and suicidal urges.”

“I’m tired of being held back in my life,” the rapper wrote. “I deserve to have peace. I deserve to be happy and smiling.”

Kid Cudi’s honest post was met with widespread support.

It also spawned a hashtag on Twitter, #YouGoodMan, for black men to open up about their experiences with mental illness and for people to discuss the intersection of race, masculinity, and mental health.

Jared PadaleckiImage result for jared padalecki wife

“I, for a long time, have been passionate about people dealing with mental illness and struggling with depression, or addiction, or having suicidal thoughts and, strangely enough, it’s almost like the life I live, as well,” he told Variety.

“I was 25 years old.

I had my own TV show.

I had dogs that I loved and tons of friends and I was getting adoration from fans and I was happy with my work, but I couldn’t figure out what it was; it doesn’t always make sense is my point. It’s not just people who can’t find a job, or can’t fit in in society that struggles with depression sometimes.”

Amanda SeyfriedImage result for Amanda Seyfried

 

“I’m on Lexapro, and I’ll never get off of it,” she told Allure.

“I’ve been on it since I was 19, so 11 years. I’m on the lowest dose. I don’t see the point of getting off of it. Whether it’s placebo or not, I don’t want to risk it. And what are you fighting against? Just the stigma of using a tool?

A mental illness is a thing that people cast in a different category [from other illnesses], but I don’t think it is. It should be taken as seriously as anything else. You don’t see the mental illness: It’s not a mass; it’s not a cyst. But it’s there. Why do you need to prove it? If you can treat it, you treat it

Nicki MinajImage result for Nicki Minaj

 

“It was just one dead end after another,” Nicki said of contemplating suicide. “At one point, I was, like, ‘What would happen if I just didn’t wake up?’ That’s how I felt. Like, ‘Maybe I should just take my life?’”

Carrie FisherImage result for Carrie Fisher
“I used to think I was a drug addict, pure and simple — just someone who could not stop taking drugs willfully. And I was that.
But it turns out that I am severely manic depressive. You can’t stop. It’s very painful. It’s raw. You know, it’s rough… your bones burn… when you’re not busy talking and trying to drown it out.””I have a chemical imbalance that, in its most extreme state, will lead me to a mental hospital,”
“We have been given a challenging illness, and there is no other option than to meet those challenges,” the late actress and author wrote in a 2016 advice column for The Guardian.
“Think of it as an opportunity to be heroic – not ‘I survived living in Mosul during an attack’ heroic, but an emotional survival.
An opportunity to be a good example to others who might share our disorder. That’s why it’s important to find a community – however small – of other bipolar people to share experiences and find comfort in the similarities.
Kristen Bell,
Kristen Bell, who struggles with depression and anxiety, is an outspoken advocate for mental health.

Kristen Bell, who struggles with depression and anxiety, is an outspoken advocate for mental health.

In an essay for Motto, the actress slammed the stereotype that people who suffer from mental illnesses are weak.

“Anxiety and depression are impervious to accolades or achievements,” Bell wrote. “Anyone can be affected, despite their level of success or their place on the food chain.”

Bell also emphasized the importance of “mental health check-ins” and awareness: “It’s important for me to be candid about this so people in a similar situation can realize that they are not worthless and that they do have something to offer. We all do.”

In 2016, Lady Gaga revealed she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during a visit to the Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBT youth in New York City.

. Lady Gaga-PTSD

 

In 2016, Lady Gaga revealed she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during a visit to the Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBT youth in New York City.

“The kindness that’s shown to me by doctors as well as my family, and my friends, it’s really saved my life,” she later said on the “Today” show.

The Grammy Award-winning singer, who previously revealed in 2014 that she was raped at the age of 19, also penned an open letter about her PTSD for her nonprofit organization, the Born This Way Foundation.

“There is a lot of shame attached to mental illness, but it’s important that you know that there is hope and a chance for recovery,” she wrote.

“My own trauma in my life has helped me to understand the trauma of others,” she says.

“I definitely look after my well-being…I openly admit to having battled depression and anxiety and I think a lot of people do. I think it’s better when we all say: ‘Cheers!’ and ‘fess up to it.'”
Sarah SilvermanImage result for sarah silverman

 

“People use ‘panic attack’ very casually out here in Los Angeles,” she told Glamour.

“But I don’t think most of them really know what it is. Every breath is labored. You are dying. You are going to die. It’s terrifying. And then when the attack is over, the depression is still there…I wouldn’t wish depression on anyone.

But if you ever experience it, or are experiencing it right now, just know that on the other side, the little joys in life will be that much sweeter. The tough times, the days when you’re just a ball on the floor-they’ll pass. You’re playing the long game and life is totally worth it.

Selena GomezImage result for Selena Gomez

“I’ve discovered that anxiety, panic attacks, and depression can be side effects of lupus, which can present their own challenges,” she told People.

“I want to be proactive and focus on maintaining my health and happiness and have decided that the best way forward is to take some time off […] I know I am not alone by sharing this, I hope others will be encouraged to address their own issues.

J.K. RowlingImage result for J.K. Rowling

“It’s so difficult to describe [depression] to someone who’s never been there because it’s not sadness,” J.K. told Oprah Winfrey. “But it’s that cold absence of feeling — that really hollowed-out feeling.”

Ellie Goulding

Image result for ellie goulding

“I started having panic attacks, and the scariest part was it could be triggered by anything. I used to cover my face with a pillow whenever I had to walk outside from the car to the studio,” she wrote in an essay for Well+Good. “My new life as a pop star certainly wasn’t as glamorous as all my friends from home thought. Secretly, I was really struggling physically and emotionally.”

Winona RyderImage result for winona ryder

“You can’t pay enough money to cure that feeling of being broken and confused. It’s not like every day’s been great ever since,” she explained. “You have good days and bad days, and depression’s something that, y’know, is always with you.”

Olivia MunnImage result for Olivia Munn

“OCD comes from a place of needing to feel safe… I had it growing up, having had a little bit of a tumultuous upbringing, moving around a lot with a mixed family with five kids,” she told Self.

Zayn MalikImage result for zayn malik

Zayn Malik has opened up about his struggles with anxiety and an eating disorder

In his autobiography, “Zayn,” Malik details how the pressures of performing and touring with One Direction led him to restrict his food intake to an unhealthy extreme:

“I’d just go for days — sometimes two or three days straight — without eating anything at all.”

While his eating disorder and anxiety have diminished since leaving One Direction, the singer continues to speak candidly about his mental health. “We’re all human,” Malik told The Sunday Times in March.

“People are often afraid to admit difficulties, but I don’t believe that there should be a struggle with anything that’s the truth.”

“I found it really frustrating that, even now that I was being upfront about what the issue was, some people still found reasons to doubt it. But that’s the industry. It’s an aspect of this job that I have to deal with, and I’m trying to accept it,” Zayn wrote in an excerpt of his book that was published by Time.

“The thing is, I love performing. I love the buzz. I don’t want to do any other job. That’s why my anxiety is so upsetting and difficult to explain.

It’s this thing that swells up and blocks out your rational thought processes. Even when you know you want to do something, know that it will be good for you, that you’ll enjoy it when you’re doing it, the anxiety is telling you a different story. It’s a constant battle within yourself.”

Kerry WashingtonImage result for kerry washington

“I say that publicly because I think it’s really important to take the stigma away from mental health,” she told Glamour.

“My brain and my heart are really important to me. I don’t know why I wouldn’t seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth. I go to the dentist. So why wouldn’t I go to a shrink?”

In January, Hayden Panettiere offered some advice for fellow moms who have struggled with postpartum depression.

In January, Hayden Panettiere offered some advice for fellow moms who have struggled with postpartum depression.

“Women are so resilient and that’s the incredible thing about them … I think I’m a better mom for it because you never take that connection for granted,” the actress said on “Good Morning America.”

The actress, whose “Nashville” character Juliette Barnes also struggled with PPD in season four, said her role helped her identify “what was going on” and shared a “great message” that it’s OK for women to “ask for help and have a moment of weakness.” “It doesn’t make you a bad person or a bad mother,” she continued.

Halle BerryImage result for Halle Berry

“I was sitting in my car, and I knew the gas was coming when I had an image of my mother finding me,” told Parade magazine about contemplating suicide after her divorce. “She sacrificed so much for her children, and to end my life would be an incredibly selfish thing to do. It was all about a relationship. My sense of worth was so low.

Princess DianaRelated image

“I was unwell with post-natal depression, which no one ever discussed… and that in itself was a bit of a difficult time. You’d wake up in the morning feeling you didn’t want to get out of bed, you felt misunderstood, and just very, very low in yourself,” she said in a 1995 interview.

“When no one listens to you, or you feel no one’s listening to you, all sorts of things start to happen.

For instance, you have so much pain inside yourself that you try and hurt yourself on the outside because you want help, but it’s the wrong help you’re asking for.

People see it as crying wolf or attention-seeking, and they think because you’re in the media all the time you’ve got enough attention, inverted commas….I didn’t like myself, I was ashamed because I couldn’t cope with the pressures.

Gwyneth PaltrowImage result for Gwyneth Paltrow

“I felt like a zombie. I couldn’t access my heart. I couldn’t access my emotions. I couldn’t connect,” she toldGood Housekeeping.

“I thought postpartum depression meant you were sobbing every single day and incapable of looking after a child,” she explains.

“But there are different shades of it and depths of it, which is why I think it’s so important for women to talk about it. It was a trying time. I felt like a failure.””

Brittany Snow, who struggled with anorexia for nine years, recently spoke out about the dangers of comparing yourself to others.

Brittany Snow, who struggled with anorexia for nine years, recently spoke out about the dangers of comparing yourself to others

In an interview with Shape, the “Pitch Perfect 3” star said she had to learn how to embrace her natural body shape and overcome society’s unrealistic body standards.

“I wanted to be like the girls I saw in fitness magazines so badly. I thought that was the ideal of happiness,” the actress said. “I wish someone had told me back then that the way a woman looks in a photo has nothing to do with who she is.”

Snow, who was bullied in high school, also partnered with The Jed Foundation and MTV in 2010 to launch the Love is Louder project, which is dedicated to amplifying supportive messages and actions in the face of “negative noise.”

Adele-postpartum depressionImage result for Adele

This Grammy award-winning artist opened up to Vanity Fair last year about her battles with postpartum depression following the birth of her son. “I had really bad postpartum depression after I had my son, and it frightened me,” she says. She admits she didn’t take any medication for it, she also didn’t talk to anyone about it. “I was very reluctant,” she said

I can slip in and out of [depression] quite easily,” Adele told Vanity Fair.

“I had really bad postpartum depression after I had my son, and it frightened me,” she said.

“I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I was very reluctant…Four of my friends felt the same way I did, and everyone was too embarrassed to talk about it.”

Michael Phelps-ADHDImage result for michael phelps

Michael Phelps is an American swimmer, who has won a record-breaking 19 Olympic medals during his swimming career.

He also lives with attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder. “For Phelps, a gangly, hyperactive child who was diagnosed with the condition aged nine, the swimming pool was a sanctuary, a place to burn off excess energy,”

. “The concept of role models can seem an overused cliche but the Olympians with ADHD may really inspire a generation of athletes who once would have been written off.”

Leonardo DiCaprio-obsessive-compulsive disorderImage result for leonardo dicaprio

The Oscar-winning star admitted he feels compelled to walk through doorways numerous times and step on sidewalk stains left by used chewing gum. But DiCaprio has managed to keep his OCD tendencies under control, saying, “I’m able to say at some point, ‘OK, you’re being ridiculous. Stop stepping on every gum stain you see. You don’t need to do that.’”

Daniel Radcliffe-obsessive-compulsive disorderImage result for Daniel Radcliffe-

The boy who made Harry Potter a household name at the age of ten has been struggling with OCD since he was five.

“Dan decided to seek help when his anxiety prevented him from turning off a light for five minutes.” Even at such a young age, Radcliffe knew something had to be done.

Image result for robin williams mental illness

Williams died in his Tiburon, Calif. home in August. On Friday, the Marin County coroner said the official cause of death was suicide by hanging. Williams had no alcohol or drugs in his system and only normal levels of prescribed medications.

Williams suffered from chronic depression and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in November 2013

Sia 

Several weeks later, while on a stopover in Thailand, she received the news that Pontifex had died after being in a car accident in London.[161] She returned to Australia, but soon she received a call from one of Pontifex’s former housemates, who invited her to stay in London. Her 2001 album Healing Is Difficult lyrically deals with Pontifex’s death: “I was pretty fucked up after Dan died. I couldn’t really feel anything. I could intellectualize a lot of stuff; that I had a purpose, that I was loved, but I couldn’t actually feel anything.” Sia recalled the effect of his death in a 2007 interview for The Sunday Times: “We were all devastated, so we got shit-faced on drugs and Special Brew. Unfortunately, that bender lasted six years for me.”

Sia has suffered from depression, addictions to painkillers and alcohol, and had contemplated suicide, going as far as to write a suicide note.In 2010, Sia’s official website announced that all scheduled promotional events and shows had been canceled due to her poor health. She cited extreme lethargy and panic attacks and considered retiring permanently from performing and touring. According to her Twitter account, she was diagnosed with Graves’ disease – an autoimmune disorder characterized by an over-active thyroid. Later that year, in an ARIA Awards interview, Sia said her health was improving after rest and thyroid hormone replacement therapy.

 

Australian singer, Sia Furler, has been around for a long time but some may struggle to recognize her. She often refuses to be photographed for interviews and uses stand-ins like 12-year-old Maddie Ziegler to represent her in music videos.LOS ANGELES - FEB 08: Sia & Maddie arrives to the Grammy Awards

She has, of course, written songs for herself (including the smash hit, “Chandelier”) but she’s found a real niche in penning tunes for others including Rihanna (“Diamonds”), David Guetta (“Titanium”) and Flo Rida (“Wild Ones”).  Rather than trying to soak up every bit of notoriety, Sia seems content to remain in the shadows despite her immense success.

During her New York Times article, she explained: “It’s horrible. I just wanted to have a private life. Once, as my friend was telling me they had cancer, someone came up and asked, in the middle of the conversation, if they could take a photograph with me. You get me? That’s enough, right?” Indeed, the fan could not have known the situation but it’s easy to understand how someone would not want their private lives so trivialized.

 

 

For more information on mental health and where to find help, visit the National Institute for Mental Health. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8225).

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Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15th, 1929. He was a pivotal advocate for African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

King experienced racism from an early age, and those events stayed with and eventually brought him to a life of activism. After graduating college with a doctorate degree in theology, King became a pastor in Alabama. He began a series of peaceful protests in the south that eventually changed many laws dealing with the equality of African Americans. King gave hundreds of moving speeches across the country, and in 1964 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

On April 4th, 1968, King was shot and killed while in Memphis, Tennessee. Although his life ended that day, the work that he had accomplished changed the nation. King will be remembered not only for his commitment to the cause of equality for African Americans but also for his profound speeches that moved so many.

123 Of The Most Powerful Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes Ever

The following 123 Martin Luther King Jr. quotes on life, love, progress, and freedom helped shape the progressive world we live in today.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes on Life

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. ”
“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.”
“We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”
“There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.”
“Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.”
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”
“Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.”
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
“There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.”
“A lie cannot live.”
“The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows”
“The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.”
 
“He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.
This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”
“Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one’s whole being into the being of another.”
“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
“It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”
Inspirational Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.”
“Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
“A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.”
“We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”
“Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.”
“You will change your mind; You will change your looks; You will change your smile,laugh, and ways but no matter what you change, you will always be you.”
“Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. ”
“Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”
“We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.”
“The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.”
“A riot is the language of the unheard.”
Martin Luther King Jr.on Leadership
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
“Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude.”
“Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.”
“When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative. ”
“That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”
“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”
“We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind.”
“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
“Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service… You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.”
“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”
“The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.”
“We cannot walk alone.”
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
“I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Progress
“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”
“We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
“Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.”
“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
“We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.”
“I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.”
“What is wrong in the world today is that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter, colossal contest for supremacy.”
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
“A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.”
“The more there are riots, the more repressive action will take place, and the more we face the danger of a right-wing takeover and eventually a fascist society.”
Martin Luther King Jr. on Justice
“No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
“The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.”
“The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.”
“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”
“I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”
“The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolence
“We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.”
“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”
“At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”
“Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.”
“World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.”
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”
“Mankind must put and end to war or war will put an end to mankind.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom
“If the cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. Because the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned tho’ we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny.”
“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as ‘right-to-work.’ It provides no ‘rights’ and no ‘works.’ Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining… We demand this fraud be stopped.”
“In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.”
“If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive. ”
“I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.”
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’ ”
Martin Luther King Jr. on Faith
“If any earthly institution or custom conflicts with God’s will, it is your Christian duty to oppose it. You must never allow the transitory, evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.”
“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles; Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it. Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”
“By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists … Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.”
“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.”
“The God whom we worship is not a weak and incompetent God. He is able to beat back gigantic waves of opposition and to bring low prodigious mountains of evil. The ringing testimony of the Christian faith is that God is able.”
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’
“Seeing is not always believing.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
“The evidence of Martin Luther King Jnr’s “I have a dream” declaration was a passionate confirmation of how a dream meant for liberation, success and fulfilled life can become true.” ―Israelmore Ayivor, Shaping the Dream
“We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization – black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King Jr. did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love…. What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.” ―Robert F. Kennedy
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was a manifestation of hope that humanity might one day get out of its own way by finding the courage to realize that love and nonviolence are not indicators of weakness but gifts of significant strength.” ―Aberjhani, Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I
“We can’t answer King’s assassination with violence. That would be the worst tribute we could pay him.” ―Sammy Davis Jr.

10 Fun Facts About Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. skipped two grades in high school, 9th and 11th, and entered college (Moorehouse College) at the age of 15 in 1944. By 19, he received a bachelor’s degree in sociology.

 

His honeymoon was spent at a funeral parlor. This was not because someone died, simply because a friend owned the parlor and offered to let him use it for his honeymoon.

His house was once bombed. This was during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 385 days.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s autopsy revealed that stress had taken a major toll on his body. Despite being only 39 when he passed away, one of his doctors noted that he had “the heart of a 60-year-old”.

Today over 700 streets in the United States are named after Martin Luther King Jr. There is one such street in almost every major city.

King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was not his first at the Lincoln Memorial.

King narrowly escaped an assassination attempt a decade before his death.

Members of King’s family did not believe James Earl Ray acted alone.

King’s mother was also slain by a bullet in 1974.

George Washington is the only other American to have had his birthday observed as a national holiday.

Martin Luther King Jr. inspired the human race to strive for harmony among all people. His tragic death shocked the nation, but his words and his dedication to equality continue to inspire younger generations.

“I Have a Dream,” Address Delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and FreedomImage result for March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963

Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)
Date: August 28, 1963
Location: Washington, D.C
Topic: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963

DescriptionImage result for March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963

Results: 200,000 to 300,000 people participate, 

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the March on Washington, or The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. On 28 August 1963, more than 200,000 demonstrators took part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in the nation’s capital. The march was successful in pressuring the administration of John F. Kennedy to initiate a strong federal civil rights bill in Congress
Iconic speech at the Lincoln Memorial for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, King urged America to “make real the promises of democracy.” King synthesized portions of his earlier speeches to capture both the necessity for change and the potential for hope in American society.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. [applause]

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves [Audience:] (Yeah) who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. (Hmm)

But one hundred years later (All right), the Negro still is not free. (My Lord, Yeah) One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. (Hmm) One hundred years later (All right), the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later (My Lord) [applause], the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. (Yes, yes) And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence (Yeah), they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men (My Lord), would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. (My Lord) Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. [enthusiastic applause] (My Lord, Lead on, Speech, speech)

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. (My Lord) [laughter] (No, no) We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. (Sure enough) And so we’ve come to cash this check (Yes), a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom (Yes) and the security of justice. (Yes Lord) [enthusiastic applause]

We have also come to this hallowed spot (My Lord) to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. (Mhm) This is no time (My Lord) to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. [applause] (Yes, Speak on it!) Now is the time (Yes it is) to make real the promises of democracy. (My Lord) Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time [applause] to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time (Yes) [applause] (Now) to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent (Yes) will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. (My Lord) 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. (Yes) And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. [enthusiastic applause] There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: in the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. (My Lord, No, no, no, no) [applause] We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. (My Lord) Again and again (No, no), we must rise to the majestic heights (Yes) of meeting physical force with soul force. (My Lord) The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people (Hmm), for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny [sustained applause], and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” (Never) We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. (Yes) We can never be satisfied [applause] as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. [applause] We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. (Yes) We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating for whites only. [applause] (Yes, Hallelujah) We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. (Yeah, That’s right, Let’s go) [applause] No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters (Yes) and righteousness like a mighty stream. [applause] (Let’s go, Tell it)

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. (My Lord) Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. (My Lord, That’s right) Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution (Yeah, Yes) and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith (Hmm) that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi (Yeah), go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities (Yes), knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. (Yes) Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. (My Lord)

I say to you today, my friends [applause], so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow (Uh-huh), I still have a dream. (Yes) It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. (Yes)

I have a dream (Mhm) that one day (Yes) this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed (Hah): “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” (Yeah, Uh-huh, Hear hear) [applause]

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia (Yes, Talk), the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream (Yes) [applause] that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice (Yeah), sweltering with the heat of oppression (Mhm), will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream (Yeah) [applause] that my four little children (Well) will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. (My Lord) I have a dream today. [enthusiastic applause]

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists (Yes, Yeah), with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” (Yes), one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. [applause] (God help him, Preach)

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted (Yes), every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain (Yes), and the crooked places will be made straight (Yes), and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed [cheering], and all flesh shall see it together. (Yes Lord)

This is our hope. (Yes, Yes) This is the faith that I go back to the South with. (Yes) With this faith (My Lord) we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. (Yes, All right) With this faith (Yes) we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation (Yes) into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. (Talk about it) With this faith (Yes, My Lord) we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together (Yes), to stand up for freedom together (Yeah), knowing that we will be free one day. [sustained applause]

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children (Yes, Yeah) will be able to sing with new meaning: “My country, ‘tis of thee (Yeah, Yes), sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. (Oh yes) Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride (Yeah), from every mountainside, let freedom ring!” (Yeah)

And if America is to be a great nation (Yes), this must become true. So let freedom ring (Yes, Amen) from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. (Uh-huh) Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. (Yes, all right) Let freedom ring (Yes) from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. (Well) Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. (Yes) But not only that: (No) Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. [cheering] (Yeah, Oh yes, Lord) Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. (Yes) Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. (Yes) From every mountainside (Yeah) [sustained applause], let freedom ring.

And when this happens [applause] (Let it ring, Let it ring), and when we allow freedom ring (Let it ring), when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city (Yes Lord), we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children (Yeah), black men (Yeah) and white men (Yeah), Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics (Yes), will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! (Yes) Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” [enthusiastic applause]

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What is Inspirational?

What is inspirational?

To offer something valuable, uplifting which motivates others to bring out the best in themselves. To be inspirational is to lead by example and encourage others to feel there is something worthwhile to become and do.Image result for inspirational

. The definition of inspirational is a person or thing that motivates mentally or emotionally. An example of inspirational is Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.

Great quotes can be inspirational and motivational. You can use quotes to help guide your decisions in life, work and love.  Nothing is impossible, the word itself says “I’m possible”! —Audrey Hepburn.
 

As Albert Einstein said: Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. So, that means we all have the power to inspire others by our actions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdDlbaS-RqY

 

Motivation is the reason for people’s actions, willingness, and goals. Motivation is derived from the word motive which is defined as a need that requires satisfaction. These needs could also be wants or desires that are acquired through influence of culture, society, lifestyle, etc. or generally innate

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

1. Your limitation—it’s only your imagination.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

2. Push yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

3. Sometimes later becomes never. Do it now.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

4. Great things never come from comfort zones.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

5. Dream it. Wish it. Do it.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

6. Success doesn’t just find you. You have to go out and get it.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

7. The harder you work for something, the greater you’ll feel when you achieve it.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

8. Dream bigger. Do bigger.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

9. Don’t stop when you’re tired. Stop when you’re done.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

10. Wake up with determination. Go to bed with satisfaction.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

11. Do something today that your future self will thank you for.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

12. Little things make big days.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

13. It’s going to be hard, but hard does not mean impossible.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

14. Don’t wait for opportunity. Create it.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

15. Sometimes we’re tested not to show our weaknesses, but to discover our strengths.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

16. The key to success is to focus on goals, not obstacles.

17 Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Be Successful

17. Dream it. Believe it. Build it.

My Top 102 Inspirational Quotes

 

1.  Life is about making an impact, not making an income. –Kevin Kruse

2. Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. –Napoleon Hill

3. Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. –Albert Einstein

4. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.  –Robert Frost

5. I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse. –Florence Nightingale

6. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. –Wayne Gretzky

7. I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan

8. The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. –Amelia Earhart

9. Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. –Babe Ruth

10. Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement. –W. Clement Stone

11. Life isn’t about getting and having, it’s about giving and being. –Kevin Kruse

12. Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. –John Lennon

13. We become what we think about. –Earl Nightingale

14.Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore, Dream, Discover. –Mark Twain

15.Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. –Charles Swindoll

16. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. –Alice Walker

17. The mind is everything. What you think you become.  –Buddha

18. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. –Chinese Proverb

19. An unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates

20. Eighty percent of success is showing up. –Woody Allen

21. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. –Steve Jobs

22. Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. –Vince Lombardi

23. I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. –Stephen Covey

24. Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. –Pablo Picasso

25. You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. –Christopher Columbus

26. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. –Maya Angelou

27. Either you run the day, or the day runs you. –Jim Rohn

28. Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. –Henry Ford

29. The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. –Mark Twain

30. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

31. The best revenge is massive success. –Frank Sinatra

32. People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing.  That’s why we recommend it daily. –Zig Ziglar

33. Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. –Anais Nin

34. If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. –Vincent Van Gogh

35. There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. –Aristotle

36. Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. –Jesus

37. The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

38. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you have imagined. –Henry David Thoreau

39. When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me. –Erma Bombeck

40. Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.  –Booker T. Washington

 

41. Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart. – Ancient Indian Proverb

42. Believe you can and you’re halfway there. –Theodore Roosevelt

43. Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. –George Addair

44. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato

45. Teach thy tongue to say, “I do not know,” and thous shalt progress. –Maimonides

46. Start where you are. Use what you have.  Do what you can. –Arthur Ashe

47. When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life.  When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I wrote down ‘happy’.  They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. –John Lennon

48. Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb

49. When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. –Helen Keller

50. Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see. –Confucius

51. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank

52. When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. –Lao Tzu

53. Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. –Maya Angelou

54. Happiness is not something readymade.  It comes from your own actions. –Dalai Lama

55. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on. –Sheryl Sandberg

56. First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end. –Aristotle

57. If the wind will not serve, take to the oars. –Latin Proverb

58. You can’t fall if you don’t climb.  But there’s no joy in living your whole life on the ground. –Unknown

59. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. –Marie Curie

60. Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. –Les Brown

61. Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. –Joshua J. Marine

62. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington

63. I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. –Leonardo da Vinci

64. Limitations live only in our minds.  But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless. –Jamie Paolinetti

65. You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame. –Erica Jong

66. What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. –Bob Dylan

67. I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong. –Benjamin Franklin

68. In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. –Bill Cosby

69. A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein

70. The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it. –Chinese Proverb

71. There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. –Roger Staubach

72. It is never too late to be what you might have been. –George Eliot

73. You become what you believe. –Oprah Winfrey

74. I would rather die of passion than of boredom. –Vincent van Gogh

75. A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty. –Unknown

76. It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings.  –Ann Landers

77. If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. –Abigail Van Buren

78. Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs. –Farrah Gray

79. The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself–the invisible battles inside all of us–that’s where it’s at. –Jesse Owens

80. Education costs money.  But then so does ignorance. –Sir Claus Moser

81. I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear. –Rosa Parks

82. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. –Confucius

83. If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough. –Oprah Winfrey

84. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. –Dalai Lama

85. You can’t use up creativity.  The more you use, the more you have. –Maya Angelou

86. Dream big and dare to fail. –Norman Vaughan

87. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. –Martin Luther King Jr.

88. Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. –Teddy Roosevelt

89. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. –Tony Robbins

90. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. –Gloria Steinem

91. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live. –Mae Jemison

92. You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try. –Beverly Sills

93. Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. –Eleanor Roosevelt

94. Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. –Grandma Moses

95. The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. –Ayn Rand

96. When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. –Henry Ford

97. It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. –Abraham Lincoln

98. Change your thoughts and you change your world. –Norman Vincent Peale

99. Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. –Benjamin Franklin

100. Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, “I’m possible!” –Audrey Hepburn

101. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. –Steve Jobs

102. If you can dream it, you can achieve it. –Zig Ziglar

 

 

Inspirational Quotes for When Your Mood Could Use a Boost

These wise and beautiful words from your favorite thinkers will get you in the right mindset to tackle whatever obstacles lie ahead.

Ella Fitzgerald

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

George Eliot

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

Deep Roy

Inspiration comes from within yourself. One has to be positive. When you’re positive, good things happen.

Mae Jemison

Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.

Mahatma Gandhi

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

Helen Keller

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

Serena Williams

A champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.

Rosa Parks​

Each person must live their life as a model for others. 

Sheryl Sandberg

Motivation comes from working on things we care about.

 The late Robin Williams

No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.

Oprah Winfrey

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.

Meghan Markle

You are enough just as you are

 The late Maya Angelou

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive.

Malala Yousafzai

Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality.

Eleanor Roosevelt

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

Audrey Hepburn

Nothing is impossible. The word itself says “I’m possible!”

Joseph Campbell

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Napoleon Hill

Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.

Walt Whitman

Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you.

C.S. Lewis

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

Albert Einstein

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Hafez

Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.

 

Ella Fitzgerald

It isn’t where you came from. It’s where you’re going that counts.

Maya Angelou

Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.

Camilla Eyring Kimball

You do not find the happy life. You make it.

E. E. Cummings

The most wasted of days is one without laughter.

Martin Luther King Jr.

If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.

Mandy Hale

You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens.

Michael Altshuler

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.

Dr. Seuss

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory.

Roald Dahl

If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

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Our Journey Begins

                    Image result for anime butterflies Our mission at the Resource & Wellness Center is to provide a safe haven for adults who experience mental health issues that by promoting ongoing recovery through peer support, advocacy, empowerment, and social skills development in a culturally competent manner.

Our staff will help you set personal goals, identify strategies to achieve those goals and develop networks of natural supports to enable you to integrate into the greater community.

We offer an atmosphere that is relaxed and friendly where people can gather to be at ease, get assistance with basic needs, socialize and help one another move towards an enhanced quality of lifeRelated image

Our Services include:

  • Peer-led support and self-help groups
  • Meditation /Yoga
  • Friday Movie Night 4pm
  • Harmonica Music
  • Artist Program (Painting, Drawings, Craft)
  • Button Making
  • Board Games
  • Open Mic/Talent Shows
  • Yoga/Exercise Groups
  • Journaling  Creative Writing Group
  • Music Recording
  • Greenhouse
  • NYC MuralArts Project

 

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