The sound universe is also spectacular around here. In the evenings there's a cricket orchestra with frogs providing the bass line. In the dead of night the dogs howl about how misunderstood they are. Before dawn the roosters for miles around announce how freaking cool it is to be roosters.

You have to work ceaselessly on your end to digest and imbibe your opportunities or, I have come to believe, they will gradually slip away and knock on someone else's more receptive door.

It is completely acceptable to be tired because it means you're working hard. But it's not acceptable to be stressed because that means things are going wrong or your head is broken.

The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go

It's still two human beings trying to get along, so it's going to be complicated. And love is always complicated. But humans must try to love each other, darling. We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.

Every intimacy carries secreted somewhere below its initial lovely surfaces, the ever-coiled makings of complete catastrophe.

Women come into marriage with great inflated expectations for what they want this relationship to be, and men don't give it that much thought. Men come into it with reluctance about being capsized or trapped or whatever their fear is. When you check in later, women are disappointed because their expectations have not come to pass, and men are pleasantly surprised.