I've said it before but it's absolutely true: My mother gave me my drive but my father gave me my dreams. Thanks to him I could see a future.

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.

I grew up in a small town in Illinois and my dad was a basketball coach. Thanks to him I have excellent fundamentals in both basketball and baseball.

I shouldn't have got married. My dad told me. I was 35 and I got married. He said 'You're too young to be married'. 'What? I'm 35'. Said 'You're far too young. You haven't lived yet'. He was right bless him thanks Dad.

I don't think I really know just how cool Satan really was when I was in Junior High School. Now thanks to Marilyn Manson it's no longer a secret.

And we have a little herb garden which survived the winter thanks to global warming. It makes me feel like a cool old Italian housewife that I kept my rosemary alive outside all winter.

I get heartfelt thanks from all kinds of people. Today I heard from a waitress in Georgia who has lost her job and is trying to figure out how her local bank can change the terms on her credit card and I heard from a physicist at a major research university who wants to explain a better theory of financial stress tests.

I wouldn't change anything. I've made mistakes but thanks to those mistakes I've learned.

It's like once you've seen Tom Hanks win the Golden Globes the Oscars you've seen his wife what kind of car he drives when you watch his movies you can't fully get really lost in them.

All the times being like 'Who rented this car and why are we going to this place?' You take the easy route and go 'Oh thanks for the champagne. I'll have another.'

When I climb into my car I enter my destination into a GPS device whose spatial memory supplants my own. I have photographs to store the images I want to remember books to store knowledge and now thanks to Google I rarely have to remember anything more than the right set of search terms to access humankind's collective memory.

I'm happy to report that 'The New Press' is still in business to this day. But not thanks to me. I was a really bad publishing intern.

Thanks to my mother not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gifts in boxes from stores that went out of business twenty years ago.

If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years which rejected it.

As we look forward to freedom the shining city on the hill and the best days of America lying ahead it is the men and women in uniform who protect defend and make us proud to whom we should look and give thanks every night.

Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure still heart and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving and for every breath a song.

Our worldly successes cannot be guaranteed but our ability to achieve spiritual success is entirely up to us thanks to the grace of God. The best advice I know is to give is to give those worldly things your best but never your all - reserve the ultimate hope for the only one who can grant it.

Thanks to capitalism the importance placed on beauty has never been so manipulated. We are the guinea pigs force-fed ads that tell us how pathetic we are: that we will never be loved happy or valuable unless we have the body the face the hair even the personality that will apparently be ours if only we buy their products.

There is no racial or ethnic involvement in Thanksgiving and people who may be very distant from the Christian system can see the beauty and the positive spirit that comes from the holiday.

Develop an attitude of gratitude and give thanks for everything that happens to you knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.

Be true to yourself help others make each day your masterpiece make friendship a fine art drink deeply from good books - especially the Bible build a shelter against a rainy day give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day.

I am so excited this year getting to play the 85th Anniversary Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Everyone knows on Thanksgiving morning to get up turn on the TV and watch the parade so to be an actual participant is going to be fun and I'm looking forward to it. I am gonna have to put on my deer hunting gear though to stay warm!

My heroes are guys like Tom Hanks Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. These are amazing actors with amazing careers that every actor should aspire to. I'm not saying I'm going to get anywhere close. It's not going to be an easy feat. I'm just in awe of their careers.

I was given such a great gift. It's a miracle that never stops amazing me and reminding me to give thanks every day. Having a wife and daughter gives me a lot more purpose. I was much more selfish before but now I think about what kind of role model I'll be. I just want to be a better man.