by then I'd figured out the gift of failure, which is that it breaks through all that held breath and isometric tension about needing to look good: it's the gift of feeling floppier.

When you make friends with fear, it can’t rule you.

I do know the sorrow of being ordinary, and that much of our life is spent doing the crazy mental arithmetic of how, at any given moment, we might improve, or at least disguise or present our defects and screw-ups in either more charming or more intimidating ways.

For twenty years I have ached to go back home, when there was nobody there to whom I could return.

It is hard to remember that you are a cherished spiritual being when you're burping up apple fritters and Cheetos.

You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind.

I was raised in a family where none of us ever raised a voice, so there was no room to express feelings of rage or even unabashed joy - a little bashed joy, here or there, or being mildly disgruntled.