Includes bibliographical references.

Foreword / Studs Terkel -- Introduction / Jay Allison -- Be cool to the pizza dude / Sarah Adams -- Leaving identity issues to other folks / Phyllis Allen -- In giving I connect with others / Isabel Allende -- Remembering all the boys / Elvia Bautista -- The mountain disappears / Leonard Bernstein -- How is it possible to believe in God? / William F. Buckley, Jr. -- The fellowship of the world / Niven Busch -- There is no job more important than parenting / Benjamin Carson -- A journey toward acceptance and love / Greg Chapman -- A shared moment of trust / Warren Christopher -- The hardest work you will ever do / Mary Cook -- Good can be as communicable as evil / Norman Corwin -- A daily walk just to listen / Susan Cosio -- The elusive yet holy core / Kathy Dahlen -- My father's evening star / William O. Douglas -- An honest doubter / Elizabeth Deutsch Earle -- Have I learned anything important since I was sixteen? / Elizabeth Deutsch Earle An ideal of service to our fellow man / Albert Einstein -- The power and mystery of naming things / Eve Ensler -- A goal of service to humankind / Anthony Fauci -- The God who embraced me / John W. Fountain -- Unleashing the power of creativity / Bill Gates -- The people who love you when no one else will / Cecile Gilmer -- The willingness to work for solutions / Newt Gingrich -- The connection between strangers / Miles Goodwin -- An athlete of God / Martha Graham -- Seeing in beautiful, precise pictures / Temple Grandin -- Disrupting my comfort zone / Brian Grazer -- In praise of the "Wobblies" / Ted Gup -- The power of presence / Debbie Hall -- A grown-up Barbie / Jane Hamill -- Happy talk / Oscar Hammerstein II -- Natural links in a long chain of being / Victor Hanson -- Talking with the sun / Joy Harjo -- A morning prayer in a little church / Helen Hayes -- Our noble, essential decency / Robert A. Heinlein -- A new birth of freedom / Maximillan Hodder The benefits of restlessness and jagged edges / Kay Redfield Jamison -- There is no God / Penn Jillette -- A duty to heal / Pius Kamau -- Living life with "Grace and elegant treeness" / Ruth Kamps -- The light of a brighter day / Helen Keller -- The bright lights of freedom / Harold Hongju Koh -- The power of love to transform and heal / Jackie Lantry -- The power of mysteries / Alan Lightman -- Life grows in the soil of time / Thomas Mann -- Why I close my restaurant / George Mardikian -- The virtues of the quiet hero / John McCain -- The joy and enthusiasm of reading / Rick Moody -- There is such a thing as truth / Errol Morris -- The rule of law / Michael Mullane -- Getting angry can be a good thing / Cecilia Muñoz -- Mysterious connections that link us together / Azar Nafisi -- The making of poems / Gregory Orr -- We are each other's business / Eboo Patel -- The 50-percent theory of life / Steve Porter -- The America I believe in / Colin Powell The real consequences of justice / Frederic Reamer -- There is more to life than my life / Jamaica Ritcher -- Tomorrow will be a better day / Josh Rittenberg -- Free minds and hearts at work / Jackie Robinson -- Growth that starts from thinking / Eleanor Roosevelt -- The artistry in hidden talents / Mel Rusnov -- My fellow worms / Carl Sandburg -- When children are wanted / Margaret Sanger -- Jazz is the sound of God laughing / Colleen Shaddox -- There is no such thing as too much barbecue / Jason Sheehan -- The people have spoken / Mark shields -- Everything potent is dangerous / Wallace Stegner -- A balance between nature and nurture / Gloria Steinem -- Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness / Andrew Sullivan -- Always go to the funeral / Deirdre Sullivan -- Finding prosperity by feeding monkeys / Harold Taw -- I agree with a pagan / Arnold Toynbee -- Testing the limits of what I know and feel / John Updike -- How do you believe in a mystery? / Loudon Wainwright III Creative solutions to life's challenges / Frank X. Walker -- Goodness doesn't just happen / Rebecca West -- When ordinary people achieve extraordinary things / Jody Williams -- Afterword: The history of This I Believe: The power of an idea / Dan Gediman -- Appendix A: Introduction to the 1950s This I Believe radio series / Edward R. Murrow -- Appendix B: How to write your own This I Believe essay -- Appendix C: How to use This I Believe in your community --