My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or...
It’s important to honor your ancestors. Bringing in a piece of furniture or an object you’ve inherited from a loved one not only honors the person who has passed but also brings the warmth of happy memories into your home.
You can't a person till you know him or her inside out, until you've lived with them and shared experience: sadness, joy, - you've got to share living before you can find love. Being love doesn't last, but you can find love to take its place.
I miss you every damn second I’m not with you,” I breathed against her ear, making her shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. “There is no one—not one fucking person—that makes me feel what you do… Remember that, Dallas. Al...
...the basic premise of religion—that if you live a good life, things will go well for you—is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet he had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even...
Whenever the communists are under fire, it [the term "red-baiter"] has served to divert attention from the subject matter to futile discussion of personal motives, the critic’s private life and other deliberate tricks of befuddlement.
Any religious person who says he does not really need human friends because God is his Friend is calling God a liar because He's the One Who says we also need human friends.
I think that if we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
August: You know, somethings don't matter that much...like the color of a house...But lifting a person's heart--now that matters. The whole problem with people--" Lily: They don't know what matters and what doesn't... August:...They know what matters...
In yet another paradox, bulimia nervosa serves as both an expression of feelings and a defense against experiencing feelings, particularly shame, anger, loneliness, sadness, envy, and guilt. A person with bulimia nervosa fear, whether consciously or ...
Be nice to people whether you mean it or not. You never know when a kind word can make a difference in another person’s day – or maybe even his or her life.
Love...no such thing. Whatever it is that binds families and married couples together, that's not love. That's stupidity or selfishness or fear. Love doesn't exist. Self interest exists, attachment based on personal gain exists, complacency exists. B...
If Stuart is a freak... it is because he has had the superhuman strength not to be defeated by this isolation. It is because he has had the almost unbelievable social adroitness to be able to fit in smoothly with an educated, soft-skinned person like...
I didn’t want the person standing there, beside the bed, to have the same face I’d found so attractive at the airport. But you were there all right: the blue eyes, blondish hair, and tiny scar. Only you didn’t look beautiful this time. Just evi...
I crouch hidden among the boulders, my body broken and bloodied. Below me, someone is about to murder my best friend, the one person who understands me. If I act, I will likely lose my own life. If I don't, I'll lose so much more...
We can't have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to those who we come up against, who enter into our moral space, so to speak. That means neighbors, people we deal with, and so on.
A sense of accomplishment. It is the most important ingredient in any rational being's formula of happiness. It is the element that builds confidence and allows us to go on to other, greater tasks. It is the item that promotes a sense of self-worth, ...
There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can n...
Our instinct may be to see the impossibility of tracking everything down as frustrating, dispiriting, perhaps even appalling, but it can just as well be viewed as almost unbearably exciting. We live on a planet that has a more or less infinite capaci...
My chest ached, my body speaking a language my head didn't quite understand. I waited. But Grace, the only person in the world I wanted to know me, just ran a wanting finger over the cover of one of the new hardcovers and walked out of the store with...
Being alone will show you who you really are, and if you cannot get-on positively as the sole master of your space in that room alone, then you can absolutely forget about it after you add another person.
