I don't want to eat anything that has a mother

Anyone who has ever been able to sustain good work has had at least one person--and often many--who have believed in him or her. We just don't get to be competent human beings without a lot of different investments from others.

All life events are formative. All contribute to what we become, year by year, as we go on growing. As my friend the poet Kenneth Koch once said, You aren't just the age you are. You are all the ages you ever have been!

Attitudes are caught, not taught.

Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.

Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.

We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.