only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.

I said that I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life's work, and try to get hold of a giant panda. If you had a giant panda in your back yard, anything could go wrong — someone could die, or stop loving you, or you could get sick — and if you could look outside and see this adorable, ridiculous, boffo panda, you'd start to laugh; you'd be so filled with thankfulness and amusement that everything would be O.K. again.

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

I never had a particularly strong craving to procreate, except for earlier fantasies of wanting to be Marmee in Little Women.

I wish there were shortcuts to wisdom and self-knowledge: cuter abysses or three-day spa wilderness experiences. Sadly, it doesn't work that way. I so resent this.

There is nothing as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time.

The worst part about celebrating another birthday is the shock that you're only as well as you are.