Mattie Stepanek

Sometimes my body wakes me up and says 'Hey, you haven't had pain in a while. How about pain?' And sometimes I can't breathe, and that's hard to live with. But I still celebrate life and don't give up.

My life mission is to spread peace to the world.

A heartsong doesn't have to be a song in your heart. It doesn't have to be talking about love and peace. It can just be your message. It can be your feeling. Some people might even call it a conscience, even though that's not really what it is. It's your message, what you feel like you need to do.

Poetry is a beautiful way of expressing feelings - happy, sad, angry, caring. It's also a way that we share with other people, to help them with those feelings.

People are fighting over how our heartsongs are different. But they don't need to be the same. That's the beauty. We are a mosaic of gifts. Each of us has our inner beauty no matter how we look.

If it came to a magic genie, I would ask him for two extra wishes. One would be that no one would have to live with the muscular dystrophy disease or any disease. And the second one would be world peace, that we just stop fighting, talk about things, and we could live in harmony once again, like God intended us to do.

While we are living in the present, we must celebrate life every day, knowing that we are becoming history with every work, every action, every deed.

I do fear death. But what I actually fear is not dying. I mean, true, it will be sad. But I know that there is a better place waiting for me.

Remember to look at your glass half full and not half empty. A lot of my strength comes from God. God has given me a gift - the gift of life - and it's amazing that I live each day.

Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.

We all have life storms, and when we get the rough times and we recover from them, we should celebrate that we got through it. No matter how bad it may seem, there's always something beautiful that you can find.

Sunset is still my favorite color, and rainbow is second.

I've gotten books published. I've met famous people that are very nice. I look back and I say, 'Wow. Thank you, God, for giving me this gift. And thank you for helping me to keep going.'

Keep all special thoughts and memories for lifetimes to come. Share these keepsakes with others to inspire hope and build from the past, which can bridge to the future.

Maybe I wanted to have kids because you want to leave behind lessons, leave behind everything that matters to you. That's how you touch the world. But I have to reconsider what it's like to leave a legacy.

I think I may have to grow up without growing old. I think we're going to have to define differently what I'm going to be. We're going to have to define my growing up differently.

I never question God. Sometimes I say, 'Why me? Why do I have such a hard life? Why do I have this disease? Why do I have siblings who died?' But then I think and say, 'Why not me?