Our job this day is to become part of the answer to the world's immense and protracted suffering rather than continuing our ancient task of being part of the difficulty.

We feel understood by people who like us; misunderstood by people who don't -- and those feelings are probably realistic.

You're wrong means that I don't understand you, I'm not seeing what you're seeing- and I'm not seeing all of you there is to see. But there is nothing wrong with you. You are what you need to be, doing what you need to be doing, and although I may take steps to protect myself of others, I do not know all and therefore am literally inadequate to judge.

I can't be found in myself; I discover myself in others. That much is clear. And I suspect that I also love and care for myself in others.

I sometimes react to making a mistake as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven. But a 'mistake' is a declaration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes I have grown.

Books seek us out. They slip themselves into our hands just at the time we are ready for a new self-concept.

Happiness is a present attitude and not a future condition.