Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.

We wanted to test each other's capacity for survival: only if we had tried in vain to destroy one another would we know we were safe.

Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.

Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.

Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone; they're for all of us.

The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.

The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.