You might get nothing out of it at all except a beautiful, long life where all you did was follow your gorgeous curiosity. And that should be enough too.

Marriage is an ongoing, centuries-long social experiment that is mostly controlled by the individuals in the relationships who insist on determining what the relationship terms are going to be. And that's why the terms of marriage change with every century and decade. We're shaping it from the inside. Marriage endures because it evolves. Obviously it does. None of us would accept marriage on its 13th century terms, not even the most conservative people...

I know this simple fact to be true, for I myself have abandoned people who did not want me to go, and I myself have been abandoned by those whom I begged to stay.

I actually have a great deal of respect for antidepressants; I think they can be enormously mighty tools toward recovery.

Marriage is - among other things - a study in contradiction and disappointment, and inside that reality there is space for us to truly learn how to love.

Traditionally, I have responded to the transcendent mystics of all religions. I have always responded with breathless excitement to anyone who has ever said that God does not live in a dogmatic scripture or in a distant throne in the sky, but instead abides very close to us indeed- much closer than we can imagine, breathing right through our own hearts.

Todd's mother had several children by different fathers, and Todd [Willingham] had been abandoned in California. ... He's a good-looking man. He was a witty man, you know? Funny, caring. He wasn't arrogant, but he was kind of set in his ways. If he thought something, it was one way. You could show him an alternative, but he was still going to stick by his particular view. But I could see how to women he could be a very charming, good-looking guy, especially when he was younger.