When you meet a new friend, the world has more light in it, doesn't it? Things become more spontaneous, and more full of laughing and freedom and novelty.

I think my life is tremendously interesting, and surely, other people do too.

Longing becomes more poignant if in the distance you can't tell whether your friend is going away or coming back. The pushing away pulls you in.

I like to walk around my neighborhood, late in the afternoon. I sometimes wind up at the wonderful, old Shell station that's been changed into a coffee shop. Right where Johnny used to change my oil, I have a latte and take out my little book bag. It doesn't sound very austere.

It's a beautiful lucid dream that has language that I can fiddle with.

The religions of the world are luminous in their individuality, and they have valuable social and soulmaking functions. Surely someday we will quit killing each other over their different strategies.

[Rumi] is trying to get us to feel the vastness of our true identity... like the sense you might get walking into a cathedral.