Everything was coming together by coming apart . . . It is the most difficult Zen practice to leave people to their destiny, even though it's painful - just loving them, and breathing with them, and distracting them in a sweet way, and laughing with them . . . if something was not my problem, I probably did not have the solution.

All freedom comes from discipline.

My best teachers were mess, failure, death, mistakes, and the people I hated, including myself.

Being on a book tour is like being on the seesaw when you're a little kid. The excitement is in having someone to play with, and in rising up in the air, but then you're at the mercy of those holding you down, and if it's your older brother, or Paul Wolfowitz, they leap up, so that you crash down and get hurt.

if you want to know how God feels about money, look at whom she gives it to.

Being enough was going to have to be an inside job.

There is nothing more touching to me then a family picture where everyone is trying to look his or her best, but you can see what a mess they all really are.