Quotes

Everyone has a story that makes me stronger. I know that the work I do is important and I enjoy it, but it is nice to hear the feedback of what we do to inspire others.

My parents always told me to be myself. I was always funny and silly as a kid. And I would always make them laugh. And they always told me to dream big and follow those dreams.

I don't talk about my personal life, and I don't talk about death.

I get tired of negativity in our country. I get tired of people who only want to know dirt. I get tired of people who don't believe in themselves.

No one is perfect... absolutely no one. Like precious stones, we have a few flaws, but why focus on that? Focus on what you like about yourself, and that will bring you happiness and peace.

Count your blessings. You are one of a kind. There's no one in the world like you. You are amazing.

For my workout, I'm up at 4 A.M. I say my prayers, count my blessings, and I work out right away. I just get it done.

One day I may be meeting you and hearing how you've changed your life by saying, 'Farewell to Fat'.

Everyone in this world is somehow connected. So why not just be nice to everybody.

Our children are obese, either have or being threatened by diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and not socially adjusting properly to others because of a lack of fitness.

I'm not into any show that makes people compete when they lose weight.

If your oxygen mask drops down, it's time to take a breather!

When I go to bed at night, I ask God to give me another day; I ask him to keep me strong and make me a good teacher and to keep spreading this right word.

Number one, like yourself. Number two, you have to eat healthy. And number three, you've got to squeeze your buns. That's my formula.

People have been frying foods since Jesus was on this planet, and there is always going to be greasy, fried, salty, sugary food. It is up to the individual to walk in and say, 'I don't want those fries today.'

Miley Cyrus, like all of us, needs to be loved. We all come from complicated parents... I understand her, and I love her, and I think things will be different with her. But you know, in the music business, sometimes you have to shock a little.

How do you get motivated? By knowing your worth. Americans do not know how worthy they are. You deserve to be healthy, but a lot of times, people have, as a child's been told - as a children been told that they're no good, that they're never going to be anything else.

People are still grasping for the miracle, and unfortunately, there are no miracles, if you do not exercise for a year, and let your body remain dormant, then you will gain weight.

I'm such a huge fan, and I've done classes of all Lady Gaga music. And she's just someone who evokes freedom and love for her fans and passion in what she does. Lady Gaga, I'll take you out for a salad anytime.

My way is the sensitive, emotional way, because that's who I am. I try to be the clown and court jester and make people laugh. At the same time, you have people in the hospital who have had gastric bypass or lap-band surgery, and they still have to work out. If you don't work out and eat healthy, you'll look like a melted candle.

I have rules about eating, exercising and rules about staying positive. And these rules are sacred to me.

I don't know about you, but every time some joker points me out as I walk through an airport wearing extra-small Dolfin shorts, a tank top and leg warmers, I get a little upset.

Puberty for me was graduating from Thousand Island salad dressing to Caesar salads. It was like going from hot dogs and hamburgers to beef stroganoff, or from ice cream in a cone to creme brulee.

When I lost my weight, I went and bought about 15 different types of underwear to see what would look good on my new body. It's exciting!

Take a moment every day to find peace. Pull over to the side of the road, turn off the radio, and find peace.

Every child can dance, I've seen it, I travel 200 days a year, and I see what happens when the music goes on, their music, not mine, when the music goes on, they feel so good about themselves, they go back in that school room and they learn. I do not want any child in America to have my childhood, because it was taken away from me, because I just wasn't good enough. Well I'm good enough now, I'm 60 years old now, and I've devoted my life to this, and I will devote my life to this till the day I die. And I hope that one day, every kid gets to feel the self esteem and self respect that I have.

[testifying at Capitol Hill in 2008] I'm not 268 pounds anymore, and I'm still not a jock, but I am fit, and I have dedicated my life to this, and I'm hoping the committee today will know there is no other way to do this, or our children will get more sick, and there's a statistic that says our children today will not live as long as their parents, what have we done? What have we done to the kids of the United States of America? This is wrong!

People go through weight gain at different cycles: you have the child who comes from overweight family or the child who's an underdog and he gains weight, you have the teenager who gets raped, who tries to commit suicide, who has peer pressure, she gains weight, you have the woman who has children one child after another, she gains weight, you have the man or woman who loses their spouse, they get depressed, she gains weight, there are 50 million reasons and 50 million stages of life where people gain weight.

Sports in school is sports, it's not exercise, if you don't get picked for the basketball team or the football team or the baseball team, you just sit there. The classroom is fine to educate children, but the school system must have a mandatory exercise program: stretching, cardiovascular, aerobic, toning, gymnastic, not just playing a sport. A sport is a sport, if you're an underdog, if you're short, you're fat, you're too tall, whatever it be, and you don't want to play sports, your left out, and that's wrong.

[on his 'perfect' brother] He wasn't fat, he was manager of the two-lane football team, he was very athletic, but, when he entered the business world, when he became an attorney, when all of a sudden he became working for city hall, my brother put on 75 pounds. The stress, the aggravation, the eating out, the fast food, the skipping breakfast, eating the larger lunch, eating dinner late at night, and now he took it all off, so he went through it too.

I had a brother who was perfect, who did everything right, and I found that food was my friend. When I brought home a D in chemistry, my mother and father screamed and yelled, the cookies remained calm. If you feel alone, if the kids don't want to play with you, if people make fun of you, and there you are with cookies, you take those cookies and you eat them and they're inside, and you're not alone anymore, there's something there.