From Pay it Forward:

Now me, I was feeling high as a kite. No drugs, no alcohol. I was just high on life, knowing that I had given the employees at Smith Interests their first oil well. I turned to the young man and said, “Buy anything you want. It’s on me.” He looked at Mr. Pakistani Man who nodded and said, “Mr. Doughnut Man means it. Get whatever you want.”

We all had big smiles on our faces. He came back to the counter with cheese-covered nachos and a big burrito. He was skinny as a stick, so I had no idea where all that food was going to go. I gave Mr. Pakistani Man my credit card and found out I had just spent $10.72. After I paid, the young man looked at me and said just simply, “Thank you.”

I said, “You’re welcome, son. Now I want you to do me a favor. Go out and do something nice for someone else.”

As he walked out the door, there was another gentleman standing at the counter getting ready to check out. He asked Mr. Pakistani Man what had just happened.

“Mr. Doughnut Man here just bought that boy his dinner.”

The guy waiting at the counter turned to me and said, “You know, God is going to pay you back tenfold.”

I looked back at him with a big smile on my face and said, “Yeah, I know. He already has.”

From Celebration:

Some people are just born to be president—and some are born to be first lady. I have always been a great admirer of those who are called to such high office, and I am more so now that I have had a chance to see one tinkle and another tinkle with laughter.

I’m a big fan of President Bush, number 41. I think quite highly of 43 too. The Bush family is just about the closest thing to royalty that we have here on this side of the pond.

And while I have had the pleasure of meeting lots of famous people in my life, nothing quite prepared me for the circumstances under which I met and became friends with President George H. W. Bush.

Sue and I had been invited to sit in Bob McNair’s sky box in Reliant Stadium to watch our hometown team, the Texans. Bob owns the team, and we had met as trustees of Baylor College of Medicine. Bob and his wife, Janice, are incredibly generous and two of the most outstanding people I know. I hope when they read this they’ll invite me back to that sky box. But after my men’s room escapade, they likely will want to forget my name.

Now, I can have a pretty good conversation with a lamppost, or so I’m told. But I admit when, during halftime, I dashed into the men’s room and found myself standing at the urinal next to 41, I was a little tongue-tied.

From Real Men Wear Pink:

Like many men and women, Pat’s diagnosis came too late, with little hope for a complete recovery. Still, she fought breast cancer for five long, painful years. Before our eyes, she was tortured to death. Her cancer was so horrific; there is no other way to describe it. And you know why it lasted so long? Every fiber of Pat’s being was focused entirely on living for her children and grandchildren.

We were at her bedside when she died. I will always remember it because I made a silent vow—to do whatever I could to ensure that other women had better outcomes.

I cared for Pat, and I know Sue felt her loss very deeply, but I wasn’t prepared for the anger Sue felt at her sister’s death. Months, even years, later Sue has struggled with the frustration of not being able to do more for her sister.

“Pat was just a number, with little access to personalized care,” she’s told me more times than I can count. “No one deserves to be just another cancer patient. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity and provided with the best available treatment options.”

Breast cancer is deeply buried in my psyche. After Pat died, and after Barbara’s diagnosis, I knew that the course of my life would be marked by supporting efforts to find a cure.

From Dancing with my Star:

You Know You Are A Dancer When:

• The price of a costume is the same as your monthly mortgage payment.
• You argue over who gets to wear the big diamond earrings . . . and you’re the guy.
• Everyone wears tons of makeup. Not to mention the girls! Even the guys are confused for streetwalkers.
• You think pierced navels are good for both sexes.
• Your partner’s costumes boast a half-yard of see-through material, tied together with a few strings and twenty-five pounds of rhinestones.
• Your hair gives new meaning to the phrase “helmet hair.” Hurricane-force winds are no match for that case of styling gel. Unless you are bald.
• You wonder if there is any other color on earth besides black.
• You wonder why you can’t make dinner reservations at 1:00 A.M.
• You ask your partner, “Do you think these six gold chains are enough around my neck?” And your partner answers, “Why so understated? Add more!”
• You wear so much self-tanner that people speak to you in Spanish first on every airline flight you take.
• You try to button your shirt, then you realize, you have no buttons—or shirt.
• If you have a shirt, you leave it unbuttoned so that everyone can see how well you coordinated your navel stud with the one in your ear.
• All that practice and dancing means you and your lady have two smokin’ hot bods.