Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You must fight for it, strive for it, and insist upon it.

Indeed, when I came to Italy, I expected to encounter a certain amount of resentment, but have received instead empathy from most Italians. In any reference to George Bush, people only nod to Berlusconi, saying","We understand how it is - we have one, too.

With each reunion (we) had to learn each other all over again. There was always that nervous moment at the airport when I would stand there waiting for him to arrive, wondering, Will I still know him? Will he still know me?

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.

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You must fight for it, strive for it, and insist upon it.

This is a nice metaphor, too, about mothers and daughters - that when it came time for me to make my own, I was making a completely different garden than the one that my mom has. They don't look like they came from relatives. Hers is a very productive and pragmatic vegetable garden, and mine is a ridiculous overabundance of useless plants. It doesn't feed anybody, it doesn't serve any purpose.

Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy.