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.

Fathers can find great inspiration in faith.

I'm a fifth generation Jew from the South, and I would say that I felt this connection to my religion, but it wasn't a spiritual connection.

The bottom line: If you want a happier family, bring those skeletons out of the closet.

Cancer is a passport to intimacy. It is an invitation, maybe even a mandate, to enter the most vital arenas of human life, the most sensitive and the most frightening, the ones that we never want to go to - but when we do go there, we feel incredibly transformed.

The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family's positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.

My name is Bruce Feiler, and I'm an explainaholic. I first heard this word used to describe Isaac Asimov, and I knew instantly that I suffered from the same condition. It's the incurable desire to tell, shape, share, occasionally exaggerate, often elongate, and inevitably bungle a good story.