Pretending can be a bold form of experimentation and inventiveness. In pretending joy or happiness, we may discover or enhance our capacity for it.

Being able to make a sincere apology - one that says, "Yes, I get it; I screwed up. Your feelings make sense, and I'm taking this seriously" - is at the heart of being successful in leadership, parenting, and friendship, as well as our own integrity and self-worth. And the failure to apologize? Even a good relationship will suffer quietly - because we really feel it when someone won't take responsibility for what they said, or didn't say.

Before modern feminism, stories of female ambition were silenced or erased; even now, they are told with apology ("Yes, it's a great honor to be a Nobel Prize laureate, but really, what I love best is staying home and being a mother to Kevin and Annie").

The first world we find ourselves in is a family that is not of our choosing.

The strongest relationships are between two people who can live without each other but don't want to.

As many have observed, it is easy to tell a lie, but it is almost impossible to tell only one.

Intimate relationships cannot substitute for a life plan. But to have any meaning or viability at all, a life plan must include intimate relationships.