And now, as George pours the vodka (giving her a light one, to slow her down) and the Scotch (giving himself a heavier one, to catch up on), he begins to feel this utterly mysterious unsensational thing--not bliss, not ecstasy, not joy--just plain ha...
Just resolve to shine, constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in the corner, and people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy, and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux, and this wi...
I see life as a waste. You grow up. Get a job. Have a family. Retire. Then die. But there's one thing worth living for and that's love and it always will be. It will be happiness with someone you can't live without. Someone to have silly arguments wi...
What kind of woman tells all her secrets?” my mother continued, flabbergasted and disappointed in me. “Especially anything that has to do with your body making babies! I know a woman who had no ovaries when she got married. Her husband found out ...
My little heart, my little girl. Dance with Daddy; dance, my pearl. Hold my hand; dance with your feet. Sing a little song; dance with the beat. Dance with a smile; sing with joy. Dance like a peacock; sing like a toy. Dance with love; sing with kind...
You cannot convince someone to see something that they do not want to see, no matter how much you know it would improve their lives. You have to love and accept them exactly as they are today. If you cannot do that, you have to let them go and find t...
You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad ...
Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone the pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude. She had never landed at Cork, so this hill and that hill beyond were as unexpected as pictures at which yo...
1 John 1:4 "These things [are written] that your joy may be full." I can always measure the amount of time I'm spending in the Scriptures by how much joy (not superficial happiness, but deep down abiding joy) I have. When I find a lack of joy in my l...
Keep the body - or keep the mind, and it will keep the body! - in a constructive manner. That is, think the pleasant things, even when the outlook may be the darkest. Do not allow the little things that are hindrances make for irritating, or to hurt ...
What if we just acknowledged that we have a bad relationship, and we stuck it out, anyway? What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And t...
While I slept you stood in the colorful night market with pyramids of bright fruit piled high Where those who loved you, rushing back to their intimate stalls, held out pears that had been dreamed for you And would the dream pear not come gladly once...
The life of a plural wife, she'd found, was a life lived under constant comparison, a life spent wondering. Sitting across from her sister-wives at Sunday dinner, the platters and serving dishes floating past like hovercraft, the questions were almos...
Music is always a healer. Music has never let me down. I know it’s my religion. There’s the idea that you can’t truly know happiness until you know sadness, so how can you heal yourself unless you’ve hurt yourself? I’m still figuring out wh...
In my ninety-plus years, I have learned a secret. I have learned that when good men and good women face challenges with optimism, things will always work out! Truly, things always work out! Despite how difficult circumstances may look at the moment, ...
In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where ou...
During this period, so many important events have occurred, and such changes in men and things have taken place, as the compass of a letter would give you but an inadequate idea of. None of which events, however, nor all of them together, have been a...
Like a very delicate snowflake that has fallen on the ground. It has met the Earth. And it shall melt, or it shall stay, to remain as ice in the cold winter. And when the seasons were to pass, this ice will melt, and transform its shape and its form ...
Remember, happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think. So start each day by thinking of all the things you have to be thankful for. Your future will depend very largely on the thoughts you think t...
A book for children, like the myths and folktales that tend to slide into it, is really a blueprint for dealing with life. For that reason, it might have a happy ending, because nobody ever solved a problem while believing it was hopeless. It might p...
I am the symbol of peace, I am the humanity I am the symbol of goodness I am the community I am the symbol of change I am the light in darkness I am the symbol of compassion I am the soul of kindness I am the symbol of joyful future I will bring brig...
