Marlo Thomas Quotes

Every child deserves a chance at a life filled with love, laughter, friends and family.

One of the things about equality is not just that you be treated equally to a man, but that you treat yourself equally to the way you treat a man.

You know, theres endorphins in laughter, as there are endorphins in running in the park.

Laughter is important, not only because it makes us happy, it also has actual health benefits. And that's because laughter completely engages the body and releases the mind. It connects us to others, and that in itself has a healing effect.

Small steps can help people make big changes to achieve what they really desire.

That wish isn't going to go anywhere unless you do something about it. Every day, just do one thing. At the end of six months, you'll be somewhere.

My mother was a strong-willed and opinionated woman - a Sicilian! - and if she didn't like something, she'd let you know about it. So her undying support of her kids went a long way in proving to us that we were on the right path.

As much success came to him, my father stayed true to his promise.

He built the hospital to help the most helpless children with catastrophic illnesses.

Today, all patients accepted for treatment at St.

Jude's are treated without regard for the family's ability to pay. Everything beyond what is covered by insurance is taken care of, and for those without insurance, all of the medical costs are absorbed by the hospital.

A society is judged by the way it cares for its most vulnerable citizens.

As an American, I am ashamed that we have turned out backs on millions of our children. I want to do my part to rectify this terrible situation.

Where will I be five years from now? I delight in not knowing.

That's one of the greatest things about life its wonderful surprises.

In the 1960s we were fighting to be recognized as equals in the marketplace, in marriage, in education and on the playing field. It was a very exciting, rebellious time.

I don't think homosexuality is a choice.

Society forces you to think it's a choice, but in fact, it's in one's nature. The choice is whether one expresses one's nature truthfully or spends the rest of one's life lying about it.

Fame lost its appeal for me when I went into a public restroom and an autograph seeker handed me a pen and paper under the stall door.

We've been taught to believe that actions speak louder than words.

But I think words speak pretty loud all of our lives; we carry these words in our head.

If you want to get somewhere in six months, you're not going to get there by wishing it.

What the results are telling them is that the most money is spent in volume by young people. They also see young people as the consumers of tomorrow and are trying to capture their attention from their competitors.

Ive always been a champion of kids pursuing their dreams.

But sometimes in life, extraordinary circumstances may force us to temporarily put our dreams on hold. The most important thing is to never lose sight of that dream, no matter what punches life may throw in our way.

When I was growing up, my mother was always a friend to my siblings and me (in addition to being all the other things a mom is), and I was always grateful for that because I knew she was someone I could talk to and joke with, and argue with and that nothing would ever harm that friendship.

Losing my parents was probably the hardest and deepest blow from which I've had to recover.

It's fascinating for us women to begin looking at our lives in five-year plans.

It really does help you keep on track. If that's too hard, start with a two-year plan.

I think loss of loved ones is the hardest blow in life.

As someone who has spent many years marveling at the brilliant and painstaking work of the doctors, scientists and researchers at St. Jude, I can attest firsthand to the bone-deep commitment these men and women have made in their fight against disease. They are at it around the clock - every hour of the day, every day of the year.

I realize now that I was a feminist and the minute I heard the word I certainly knew it meant me, but at that time I don't think we had the label yet. But there's no doubt about it that I was born a feminist.

[On husband Phil Donahue:] The man does not know the meaning of the word tidy.

He asked me one day, 'Where are my shoes?' So I asked him, 'Where are my shoes?' I don't know what it is about men. They think that women have radar attached to our uteruses.

Nothing is either all masculine or all feminine except having sex.

Living with these teenage boys allowed me to see how much their psyches were like their girl counterparts. They were more familiar to me than I would have thought.

I think in my case, I had no choice but to have a good sense of humor.

I grew up with my dad, Danny Thomas, and George Burns and Bob Hope and Milton Berle and Sid Caesar and all those guys were at our house all the time and telling jokes and making each other laugh.

Be who you are. Otherwise, you end up committing suicide. You end up marrying people when you shouldn't be marrying them and having terrible, secret lives.

It's important to think big, but you've got to work small.

The rejection that we all take and the sadness and the aggravation and the loss of jobs and all of the things that we live through in our lives, without a sense of humor, I don't know how people make it.

That is the difference between St. Jude's and all other children's hospitals. The other hospitals are not bad at all; they're good hospitals, but they're just working with what they know, and St. Jude's is working with what nobody else knows, because they're doing research.

Chiropractic solved my neck and shoulder pains;

it put me back on my feet. I think chiropractic is great!

I have this theory that there are two kinds of people in the world, people who stop at a traffic accident and those that just drive by. If I see a traffic accident, I am going to stop. I do notice. I don't think that makes me a good or bad person, or anybody else better or worse.

When I look back at those pictures of my mother performing - and listen to her recordings - it makes me sad to think that all of that joy she found in her work came to an end. I wish she hadn't had to make that sacrifice, even if it was for the benefit of my father and siblings and me.

I find that balancing my life with my work with the kids at St.

Jude, working on books, working on my career as an actor and taking time out for my husband and family help to cushion a lot of the blows.

I was an educated girl. I'd done very well in school. I had a good point average and graduated from USC as an English teacher. My dad didn't even finish high school.

One of the best parts of Thanksgiving for me is re-watching some of the classic holiday blunders that have been depicted on television. I remember laughing uncontrollably on the set of 'That Girl' back in 1967 when we shot the episode, 'Thanksgiving Comes But Once A Year, Hopefully' during our second season.

It's so important to raise people to grow up to be who they are and not be forced to be who they're not. What an awful thing to do to people - it's like being in prison.

What I'm loving about Hilary Clinton is that she has the job that's been held mostly by men. She's made it her job, not only to be a very tactful diplomat, but she travels the world, spotlighting what's going on with girls and women, in every country that she goes to. That has been so unique.

The Golden Girls certainly proved that there was a large audience for a show about older women.

I am extremely grateful for two big gifts from my father.

First, my sense of humor - the ability to see the humor in something while it is happening. That has cushioned my life. I am also grateful for the work of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. It has enriched my life and made me a very different person.

There's no doubt about it... I was born a feminist.

I wish someone would have told me that, just because I'm a girl, I don't have to get married.

Never face facts; if you do you'll never get up in the morning.

So I still seized the power, but I felt that if I officially made myself the boss, in black and white, it would be too intimidating for the other producers and the other men who worked on the show. In other words, I had the power, but I gave them the title.

If you really need to, you have to make it happen.

If it's one thing we learned from the first book, it's that you don't have to be a prizefighter, or a world-renowned architect, or a concert violinist to have been affected by the power of words.

You can't be happy, if you're not free and you're not fulfilling yourself.

In my work, there's a tremendous amount of rejection and waves of fertile and fallow times.