Visit an Airport

"The greatest thing is watching families reunite. Check out the flights from San Juan. Nobody does it like Puerto Ricans. They've got signs. They hug. It's beautiful. You'll feel better about life."
-Brett Butler, comedian

Get out of the House

"Nothing is more annoying to me than someone who says he saw a comedy and it wasn't funny. Where'd he see it? On video, at home, alone, with a TV dinner. Go to a theater to see a movie. Gather with people. You'll laugh more."
-Jay Leno, talk-show host

Give things away

"If you give, you always receive. Why stockpile shoes? Give someone a pair of shoes you haven't worn in six months. See what'll happen in your life. Great stuff. I can't explain it, but it'll happen."
-Mykelti Williamson, actor (Bubba in Forrest Gump)

Flash Those Pearly Whites

"When you smile, you relax 200 muscles in your body. It helps. Plus, life isn't so bad. There's plenty to smile about."
-Nancy Kerrigan, skater

Do the Macarena at a Funeral

"You'd remember that, wouldn't you? You'd come home and you'd say, 'You know what we did at the funeral today? It was a little weird but…' People would go home feeling stupid, but they wouldn't be dwelling on their pain."
-Dave Barry, author and humorist

Focus on the Positive

"I carry a lot of positive things out of my first marriage. My ex-wife [Roseanne] built up my self-esteem. I thought so much of her talent that if she thought I was good enough to be her writer and act with her, then I must have been good. The flip side is, she now says I'm horrible. But I try to remember the good things she said."
-Tom Arnold, actor

Milk Bad Memories

"People who've had happy childhoods are wonderful, but they're bland. They're not driven to achieve. What a snore. An unhappy childhood compels you to use your imagination to create a world in which you can be happy. Use your old grief. That's the gift you're given."
-Sue Grafton, mystery writer

Use These Words

"If you use the words 'love,' 'live,' and 'life' in every possible combination, you'll start every day with the right attitude. Love life. Live to love. Love to live. Try it. You'll see."
-Robin Leach, celebrity host

Look at the Bright Side

"If you've got one good wiper blade, you're in good shape-as long as it's on the driver's side."
-Trisha Yearwood, singer

Be Like Garfield

"Have a nice meal and a belch. You'll feel a lot better."
-Jim Davis, cartoonist

Be True to Yourself

It took singer Melissa Etheridge most of her life to be able to stand on stage, in a lone spotlight, and defiantly declare: "Yes I am!" Those three words are more than just the title of one of her hit albums. To her, they're a philosophy of life and a response to her detractors.

"It's a very empowering statement," she says. She refers to Yes I Am as "the album that came out after I did," so, naturally, people assume she was answering the question: "Are you gay?"

"Yes I am," she says. But she's other things, too: a small-town girl, a big-time tease (in concert, she flirts all the way to the back row), a mother (with her companion of seven years, Julie Cypher, who got pregnant through a sperm donor). Etheridge says there are countless questions to which she'd answer, "Yes I am."

She encourages all of us to mull over the possibilities in that simple sentence. "When someone asks, 'Are you happy?' and you can say, 'Yes I am,' then you really own it. If you can look inside yourself and ask, 'Who am I?,' then you can be clear with other people. And I believe good things can come from that."

Love Yourself

In 1976, at age twenty-two, Oprah Winfrey moved to Baltimore to anchor the evening news. Given TV's preoccupation with physical attractiveness, she was soon informed that she had the wrong profile for her high-profile job. Her station took her to a slew of fancy hairstylists and makeup artists.

"They wanted my nose more pointed, my eyes closer together, and my hair straighter," she says. "They sent me to a place in New York where they do chi-chi poo-poo makeovers and gave me a French perm. A French perm and Negro hair don't mix. In a week, I was bald. And I couldn't find a wig to fit my head, so I had to wear scarves. It was horrible."

Her self-esteem fell to critically low levels, she says. "They wanted to make me a Puerto Rican. Or something. What I should have said then, and what I would say now, is that nobody can tell me how to wear my hair. I've since vowed to live my own life, to always be myself."

Since then, advice-seekers who come Oprah's way are counseled: Be yourself and love yourself. Winfrey knows this is the secret not just to success, but to happiness, too.

Resist Insecurity

The Truth About Cats & Dogs was a surprise hit-especially to the movie's star, comic actor Janeane Garofalo. During filming, she says, studio executives "weren't shy about letting me know they weren't happy" with her performance. They felt she came across as dour and unlikable. Co-star Uma Thurman talked them out of replacing her.

It was a painful experience for Garofalo. Every scene was shot again and again. She wasn't allowed to improvise. "I was enraged," she says. At night, as a release, she took to pacing, shadow-boxing, smoking, and grinding her teeth.

She coped by keeping in mind a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." She'd look around the movie set. "I thought, 'It's not their fault I feel insecure. It's my own.'"

And in the end, audiences embraced the movie, and critics praised her. The lesson Garofalo learned: "If studio heads don't like what you're doing, you're probably on the right track."

Don't Put Much Faith in Career Counselors

"Think about it," says Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams. "The best job they could get is career counselor."

Don't be a Full-fledged Grown-Up

"It's essential that a part of you not grow up," says Robin Quivers, sidekick to radio's Howard Stern. "Childhood wonder gives us our spark and beauty. Our show's slogan used to be, '50,000 watts of fifth grade.'"

Don't Envy Beautiful People

You never know their real story, says comic actor Tracey Ullman. "I'll look at a photo of a movie star from the '30s, all made up and glamorous, and I'll wonder if she had her period that day. Or did she have to go out with some guy from the mob that night?"

Don't be So Suspicious

"People think I've had breast implants," says actor Jennifer Tilly. "That's because people who've had breast implants suspect everyone else of having implants. It's like people who lie about their age. They assume everybody else does. Or people who cheat on you. They always assume you're cheating on them."

Don't Worry About What People Say

"Our show got on the cover of Newsweek," says Anthony Edwards, star of ER. "My friends called me and said, 'But they called you chinless and balding!' I said, 'Who cares?' What people say doesn't matter to me. That attitude works on every level, in every part of life."

Don't Play by the Rules

"I don't arm wrestle, but once in a bar, a guy kept asking me to do it," says actor Robert Conrad. "He was very obnoxious about it. Finally, he put his right hand down and I knocked him out with a left hook. That's a true story."

Don't Foist your Life on Others

"I have a high state of resentment for the conformity in this country," says comic Bill Maher, a bachelor. "If you're not married and having children, it's like your life is empty or you're a communist meanie. Some people prefer this life. If you have kids, thank these people. They're keeping your kids' schools from getting overcrowded."

Don't Argue in the Twilight Zone

"I met a guy once who told me he didn't like the way I played Napoleon," says actor Rod Steiger. "He said he knew Napoleon. Uh-huh. Well, you can't argue with a guy like that. You just let him sit anywhere he wants."

Don't Blab on a Car Phone

When actor Rita Wilson (Tom Hanks's wife) called her mom on her car phone to say she was pregnant, a tabloid reporter listened in on a scanner, then published her secret. "Don't talk about anything serious on a car phone," says Wilson. "My friends and I now speak in codes."

Don't Say your Marriage "Failed"

"I'm amazed at people who stay married for fifty years," says talk-show host Larry King, who has been married six times. "I hope they're happy and they're not putting on a face, or staying together for the children. I'd never use the word failure in regard to marriage. It's a process, not a failure. Who's to say what normal is? We change in life. What you like at age twenty is not what you like at thirty or forty. Ever run into an old girlfriend?