You have to get hurt. That's how you learn. The strongest people out there, the ones who laugh the hardest with a genuine smile, those are the people who have fought the toughest battles. Because they've decided that they're not going to let anything hold them down, they're showing the world who's boss. One must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.

I had long ago learned that when you are the giant, alien visitor to a remote and foreign culture it is sort of your job to become an object of ridicule. It’s the least you can do, really, as a polite guest.

If we never leave our house except to drive to work, do we need to be even remotely aware of this powerful, humbling, extraordinary and eternal life force that surges and ebbs around us all the time? Apparently not. Because we have stopped paying attention.

Maturity brings - among other things - the ability to sustain and survive enormous contradictions and disappointments.

I wondered, "Why have I been chasing happiness my whole life when bliss was here the entire time?

Marriage is a strange combination of dream and reality, and we spend our lives as couples trying to negotiate that divide.

If I am to truly become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian.