If a man has a sense of identity that does not depend on being shored up by someone else, it cannot be eroded by someone else. If a woman has a sense of identity that does not depend on finding that identity in someone else, she cannot lose her identity in someone else. And so we return to the central fact: it is necessary to be.

The cruelest affront is treating the person as exactly the person he is. We all long to be understood, but not for what we are. We long to be understood for what we might have been had all been for the best in the best of all possible worlds and, at the same time, to be forgiven for what we are.

It is possible to ruin a chicken in the cooking of it, but not easily. Short of burning it or letting it get dried out, you can hardly go wrong.

It takes an enormous amount of energy, creative energy withdrawn from the total economy of the person, to hold a trait underground, and, unfortunately, needs and drives do not go underground alone; they carry with them useful parts of the personality, depriving it of richness and the possibility of a variety of response.

The person who conveys, 'I am nothing. Make me something,' may all his life have people trying to answer his hidden plea, but their answer will be in terms of, 'I am trying to make you something because you are nothing,' and, thus, the insult will be embedded in the response. It will be heard just as clearly as the attempt to help. And it will be hated.

cookbooks, I found, are intended for people with time to cook - and, surprisingly often, for people who already know how to cook.

In order to plan your future wisely, it is necessary that you understand and appreciate your past.