Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.

We Americans, with our terrific emphasis on youth, action, and material success, certainly tend to belittle the afternoon of life and even to pretend it never comes. We push the clock back and try to prolong the morning, over-reaching and over-straining ourselves in the unnatural effort. ... In our breathless attempts we often miss the flowering that waits for afternoon.

Why is it that you can sometimes feel the reality of people more keenly through a letter than face to face?

Frenchwomen just never look ungroomed, do they?

When one is a stranger to oneself, then one is estranged from others, too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. Only when one is connected to one's own core, is one connected to others. And for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be re-found through silence.

Don't wish me happiness - I don't expect to be happy it's gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor - I will need them all.

To be deeply in love is, of course, a great liberating force.