The higher the joy is not the light, it's the reflection. The greater pleasure is not climbing up; it's handing down

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.

Religion is increasingly a woman's domain in America.

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

Decades of research have shown that most happy families communicate effectively. But talking doesn't mean simply 'talking through problems,' as important as that is. Talking also means telling a positive story about yourselves.

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.

When I was growing up, I, like many Jews, cheered what appeared to be the receding of faith from everyday life. The further religion got from our lives the better our lives would get, I thought, because persecution had been such a burden to Jewish families for generations.