When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.

I've often hesitated in beginning a project because I've thought, 'It'll never turn out to be even remotely like the good idea I have as I start.' I could just 'feel' how good it could be. but I decided that, for the present, I would create the best way I know how and accept the ambiguities.

It's not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It's the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff.

Children long to know that they are lovable. And there are ways that technology can help with that. But ultimately it's their relationships with their parents, their grandparents, their peers, and their teachers that help them to know that for sure. A child can learn the word "hug" and the letters h-u-g through a computer, but a computer can never give the child a hug.

Human relationships are primary in all of living. When the gusty winds blow and shake our lives, if we know that people care about us, we may bend with the wind ... but we won’t break.

Silence is so powerful, so important. There is so much to be learned from it.

Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.