I do feel haunted by some of the letters and the suffering people have endured. But I keep in mind that the people who write to me know that I am a journalist and an on-line advice columnist, not a social service professional.

The sadness from reading letters that you know you can't help because it's a person who's in extremis and their problems are not soluble by an advice column.

I have this wonderful capacity just to walk away from my mistakes and not dwell on them.

Anyone who marries gets no guarantee that their partner, no matter what they vow, will always keep that promise.

People who have undergone a loss get a fair amount of leeway on their behavior.

When my daughter left for college, I lost my in-house consultant to youth culture. There's just stuff I don't get. And there's something kind of pathetic about someone my age trying to pretend she gets it, so I don't try to pretend.

I'm not a big advocate of living together before marriage. It can be the right thing, but it can also leave two people stuck together who haven't figured out what they really want out of the relationship.