I am a member of a small, nearly extinct minority group, a kind of urban lost tribe who insist, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, on the sanctity of being on time. Which is to say that we On-timers are compulsively, unfashionably prompt, that there are only handfuls of us in any given city and, unfortunately, we never seem to have appointments with each other.

The great myth of our work-intense era is 'quality time.' We believe we can make up for the loss of days or hours, especially with each other, by concentrated minutes. But ultimately there is no way to do one-minute mothering. There is no way to pay attention in a hurry.

The truth is that we can overhaul our surroundings, renovate our environment, talk a new game, join a new club, far more easily than we can change the way we respond emotionally. It is easier to change behavior than feelings about that behavior.

Our 'mistakes' become our crucial parts, sometimes our best parts, of the lives we have made.

Maybe at 20 you can write well, but I don't think you could do what I do. Some things have to happen to you first.

When we describe what the other person is really like, I suppose we often picture what we want. We look through the prism of our need.

The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves.