But humans disappoint. Adam, in tasting the fruit, indicates that he prefers Eve to God, so God banishes them.

One day, my daughter Tybee came to me, and she said, ‘I have so much love for you in my body, Daddy, I can’t stop giving you hugs and kisses. And when I have no more love left, I just drink milk, because that’s where love comes from.’

I grew up as a fifth-generation Jew in the American South, at the confluence of two great storytelling traditions. After graduating from Yale in the 1980s, I moved to Japan. For young adventure seekers like myself, the white-hot Japanese miracle held a similar appeal as Russia in 1920s or Paris in the 1950s.

You don't need a grand plan, you don't need to go back to the ancestors and rewrite the rules. You just need to take small steps and accumulate small wins.

The biggest idea that I have learned - I basically went in to write a book about Adam and Eve, ended up writing a book about love. And what did I learn? Love is a story you tell with another person.

There is profundity to explore, but also laundry to do.

The most successful families embrace and elevate their family history, particularly their failures, setbacks and other missteps.