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.

Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions.

Our sense of what is valuable will hence be radically distorted if we must perpetually condemn as tedious everything we lack, simply because we lack it.

Though debts are condemned in the financial world, the world of friendship and love may perversely depend on well-managed debts.

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

Choosing a spouse and a choosing career: the two great decisions for which society refuses to set up institutional guidance.

Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.