One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

The ball of rumor and criticism, once it starts rolling, is difficult to stop.

My father taught me that a bill is like a crying baby and has to be attended to at once.

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.

When you love someone you do not love them, all the time, in the exact same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.

The beach is not the place to work; to read, write or think.

The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires.