When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe. Let go.

And then, in that regal silence, finally -- I began to meditate on (and with) God.

Who amongst us lives without sacrifice?

Everything really is going to be okay. (And if not okay, then at least comic.).

I was a bartender for a long time, so I know how to make drinks, but I'm more likely to offer them than to have them. I think this is one of the reasons why I get to live longer than my great-grandmother did, and why I get to produce more writing than she did, and why my marriage isn't in dire straits.

Moreover, they would likely agree that there is not one special person waiting for you somewhere in this world who will make your life magically complete, but that there are any number of people (right in your community, probably) with whom you can seal a respectful bond.

I love you, Sister. And I don't use that word lightly! (Neither love, nor sister. You embody both).

David was catnip and kryptonite to me.

That is who Barack Obama is -- a person of admirable character -- and that is who he has remained for me over these last four years. I have not agreed with his every decision, but never once have I seen him break his cool, lose his composure, or abandon his insightful perspective -- even during the most serious and or absurd national disasters.

I am far more of a loner than people would imagine. But I am the most gregarious and socially interactive loner you ever met. The thing is, I am fascinated by people's stories and I'm very talkative and can't ever say no to anything or anyone, so I tend to over-socialize, to give away too much of my time to the many people I adore.

According to the mystics, this search for divine bliss is the entire purpose of a human life. this is why we all chose to be born, and this is why all the suffering and pain of life on earth is worthwhile -- just for the chance to experience this infinite love. And once you have found this divinity within, can you hold it? Because if you can...bliss.

The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice.

Sanity and clarity are more important for me and I'm willing to give up a lot of shimmer for it. I'm willing to have more boring friends, who are sane.

I know what it feels like to be bruised; I know what it feels like to carry things around with you that never totally heal. There's closure and then there's stuff that's kind of like, Well, I guess it's going to be in the minivan forever. And you carry it with you and you continue on your journey with your minivan full of stuff, which I think most of us do.

Of course, we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure).

I don't think you can come into your wisdom until you have made mistakes on your own skin and felt them in reality of your own life.

The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement.

When you have only two minutes to say good-bye to the person you love most in the world, and you don't know when you'll see each other again, you can become logjammed with the effort to say and do and settle everything at once.

The Silly Putty-like malleability of the institution marriage, in fact, is the only reason we still have the thing at all. Very few people... would accept marriage on it's thirteenth-century terms. Marriage survives, in other words, precisely because it evolves. (Though I suppose this would not be a very persuasive argument to those who probably also don't believe in evolution).

The gods are fond of the cryptic and dislike the evident.