If that were God's plan, it's a bad bargain; I don't want to have to deal with a God like that...My sense is God and I came to an accommodation with each other a couple of decades ago, where he's gotten used to the things that I'm not capable of and I've come to terms with things he's not capable of...and we care very much about each other.

I suspect that the happiest people you know are the ones who work at being kind, helpful and reliable - and happiness sneaks into their lives while they are busy doing those things. It is a by-product, never a primary goal.

We don't have to be afraid of dying because it's not really death that scares us. We are afraid of not having lived.

We teach children how to measure and how to weigh. We fail to teach them how to revere, how to sense wonder and awe.

One of the basic needs of every human being is the need to be loved, to have our wishes and feelings taken seriously, to be validated as people who matter.

We do ourselves and others a disservice when we make old age something to be feared. Life is not a resource to be used up, so that the older we get, the less life we have left. Life is the accumulation of wisdom, love and experience of people encountered and obstacles overcome. The longer we live, the more life we possess.

I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.