Maria Shriver Quotes

Having kids — the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings — is the biggest job anyone can embark on

Having kids - the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings - is the biggest job anyone can embark on. As with any risk, you have to take a leap of faith and ask lots of wonderful people for their help and guidance. I thank God every day for giving me the opportunity to parent.

you are the leader you've been looking for

It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning -- it'll be gone." [Maria Shriver Interviews the Famously Private Poet Mary Oliver (O Magazine, March 2011)]

Forgiveness is letting go of the need to feel like a victim. Work on it. You’ll lighten your load—the load of negativity you carry around.

Your life is like a mosaic, a puzzle. You have to figure out where the pieces go and put them together for yourself.

Comparing how you feel on the inside (bad) to the way someone else looks on the outside (great) is a losing proposition. It's an impossible standard.

Listen: You can't short-circuit the learning process. It takes time to get to the top, and that's good-because by the time you get there, you'll have learned what you need to know in order to stay there.

Prayer is talking to God. Meditation is letting God talk to you.” —Yogi Bhajan

Let’s not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness.” —James Thurber

I stressed out trying to figure out what I could say. I ate licorice. I stressed some more. I ate Dots. I stressed out even more-and wiped out a bag of Swedish Fish. And then I wrote.

The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” —Pema Chödrön

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

But I’ve learned that living in either the past or the future keeps me up in my head, out of reality, robbing me of the present.

Starting at the bottom is not about humiliation. It's about humility—a realistic assessment of where you are in the learning curve.

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

As Steve Jobs pointed out, life can either be limiting, safe, and secure or it can be wide open, creative, and sometimes scary.

we should look at the things he can do ...not at what he can't do.

FAILING IS A PART OF LEARNING.

In this day and age it's really stupid to be stupid about financial matters. It doesn't do you any good to make money if you don't know what to do with it other than spend it.

It takes courage to care. It takes passion to stand up for someone or something you believe in and care about.

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the action that we do.

Perfectionism doesn’t make you feel perfect; it makes you feel inadequate.

So, if you’re feeling down, confused, or shaken, read the Prayer of Saint Francis. If you’re feeling elated, vindicated, or boastful, read the Prayer of Saint Francis. It’s withstood the test of time, because it works.

May today there be peace within May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith May you use those gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you May you be content knowing that you are a child of God Let this presence settle into your bones and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love It is there for each and every one of us. —Saint Teresa of Avila

Men are taught to view women as “less than.” Far too many aspects of manhood and masculinity are defined by devaluing women. Men are taught to have higher expectations of our sons and lower expectations of our daughters. That’s because the men before us taught us to minimize and trivialize the experience of women and girls—even the women and girls in our own lives. We pass that teaching on to our sons and other boys. I’m not saying this is true for every man, but I am saying that it happens far too often, with far too many of us.

Peace within leads to peace in your home, your community, and your country. When I was growing up, my father never let us belong to the country club near our home because, the club didn’t accept African Americans or Jews. He told us we couldn’t belong to a place that didn’t accept everyone. That has stuck with me my entire life. America’s story has been a place where people felt they could come and find belonging and acceptance. I’m a descendant of immigrants, and my children’s father is a first-generation immigrant. We all want to belong. We all want to be accepted. Recognizing that we share this desire can help us see our shared humanity.

In Philadelphia, the Pope told the story of the Pennsylvanian Saint Katharine Drexel, who had a private audience with Pope Leo XIII in 1887. She told him of the challenges faced by Native Americans and African Americans back home. She asked him to send Catholic missionaries to come help these people. The Pope asked her: “What about you? What are you going to do?” The question made her think about her own contribution to the Church, and she made a decision to change her life. She took her vows, founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and devoted her life to speaking out against racial injustice and helping and educating American Indians and African Americans. Saint Katharine Drexel was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000. “What about you? What are you going to do?” The question goes deep. What can you and I do to make our communities better, more compassionate, kinder, and more caring? What can we each do to care for our common home?

But are chocolates, roses, jewelry, and big fancy dinners what love is really about? Really? Those things can certainly be part of the equation, but the kind of love I think everyone needs is the love that’s already all around us. It’s love that is patient, kind, supportive, gentle, and accepting. It’s about caring, listening, and being present. It’s about forgiveness and understanding. It’s when someone brings you a cup of coffee or orders you an iced tea before you arrive, just because they know you like it. It’s your friend sending you an article or a poem she likes. Or someone calling just to check in on you. I’m not saying I don’t like flowers or beautiful dinners, because I do. But like my friend, I’ve often missed acknowledging and experiencing the gift of love that already surrounds me in my life. Yes, what the world needs now is more love. But what each of us also needs now is to see and experience the real hardworking love that’s already there for us in our lives every single day. We need to see it, feel it, and recognize it for what it is: real love in real life.

Someone once told me not to be afraid of being afraid, because, she said, “Anxiety is a glimpse of your own daring.” Isn’t that great? It means part of your agitation is just excitement about what you’re getting ready to accomplish. And whatever you’re afraid of—that’s the very thing you should try to do. —Maria Shriver

WE HEADED TO Sun Valley for the holidays. Arnold and Maria Shriver had a house about the size of the mountain’s main ski lodge.

Regular exercise also dramatically reduces your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. A study from 201815 showed that women who were physically fit at middle age were a whopping 90 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease even decades later. The few fit women who participated in the study and did eventually develop Alzheimer’s did so an average of eleven years later than women who did not exercise, at the age of 90 compared to 79. Now listen up, my female readers. As my good friend Maria Shriver and I both know, Alzheimer’s disproportionally affects women, and the cure is prevention, not a long-sought-after but not-yet-discovered drug. Imagine that you read a headline saying that taking a “drug” would prevent 90 percent of all Alzheimer’s disease if the treatment is started early. How much would you pay for it? Well, that drug is a combination of exercise and, as you’ll soon learn, simple choices in food. Another study examined the effects of exercise on patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s and found that it improved memory performance and even reduced atrophy of the hippocampus, the memory centers of the brain.16 We also know that exercise that uses the legs in particular stimulates brain cells, keeping you alert and healthy long into old age.17 Remember “Michelle”? I have no doubt that walking her Pomeranian (in her high heels!) multiple times a day helped her stay sharp well into her ripe old age. Meanwhile, “brain training” apps that claim to help you improve your brain actually do nothing for working memory or IQ.18 So skip the games and go out for a walk instead. Exercise

Shriver brothers Robert and Mark have also found ways to support the family commitment to the disabled. With the musician Bono, Robert helped found DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa), which advocates for the eradication of poverty through education, debt reduction, development assistance, and campaigning for access to treatment for AIDS and malaria in Africa; and Mark serves as senior vice president of U.S. programs for Save the Children. Eunice’s only daughter, Maria Shriver, sits on the boards of Special Olympics and Best Buddies, and

Opportunity becomes a family tradition when we design programs and policies with the whole family’s educational and economic future in mind and help them access the social networks needed to make it in life.

The Shriver Report reveals this quiet reality: The people who we expect to raise us, care for us, and work to support us are too often left unsupported and uncared for.

Dear God, thank you for unexpected gifts of love that are all around me. May I continue to stay open to finding them, seeing them, and letting them into my heart. Amen.

courage is walking through your fear with faith.

Try to put in the hearts of your children a love for home. Make them long to be with their families. So much sin could be avoided if our people really loved their home.

A few years ago I found myself telling my life story to a friend—how I grew up, how people helped me find my own way, helped me in my journalism career, brought me to the West Coast, toughened me up, made me the person I am today. Midway through my spiel, my friend stopped me cold and said, “Whoa whoa whoa! You’re telling your story all wrong!” “What? What do you mean?” “You are the hero of your own story. Stop making other people responsible for every twist and turn in your life. You made the decisions that got you from Point A to Point B. You worked hard. You navigated your way to where you are today. Your story is a heroine’s journey. Tell it that way!

No matter what your age, no matter what your income, no matter what life has thrown your way, your mind will be your best ally in moving you forward. And the truth is, it’s not selfish to spend time learning how to redirect your thoughts. It’s crucial if you want to live in your power, in your center, in your certainty.

May we reassure ourselves that being a woman isn’t a liability. It’s an asset. Like any asset, you must invest in it, care for it, recognize its uniqueness, and nurture it forward.

If you’re a woman, never doubt that you belong at the table. Never doubt that you bring something to it. And never forget to save a seat for someone else.

If we want to find our passion and our purpose, we have to care about something deeply, and yet not care about what other people say about what we’re doing. Remember, those who judge you don’t know you, nor do they care about who you really are. So care for yourself. Care for others. But don’t care too much what others think or say. Get that right, and you can change the world.

The doorman, who was trying to grab my impatient and restless brother a cab, turned to him and said, “We have time here. Not like you in America. In America, you have no time, so you do not live.” This really made my brother stop (a huge feat, by the way), and that was the message he was sharing with me in his email. “You’re so busy, you leave no time to live. Make your time yours,” he wrote to me from halfway around the world.