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.

Almost anything can be stretched to serve more people by being added to a white sauce or canned gravy or undiluted or very slightly diluted canned soup and served over noodles or rice. With chops or chocolate eclairs, however, the only solution is to claim you don't like them.

It is rewarding to find someone you like, but it is essential to like yourself. It is quickening to recognize that someone is a good and decent human being, but it is indispensable to view yourself as acceptable. It is a delight to discover people who are worthy of respect and admiration and love, but it is vital to believe yourself deserving of these things.

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.

While it is necessary to eat and therefore it is pleasantest to eat food that looks handsome and tastes good, on the other hand there are things I would far rather do than spend time in a kitchen.

Examining love is like examining a stocking: if you hold it up to the light and stretch it to search for snags, any snags there are may well run and ruin the stocking. In fact, if I may fashion Coudert's law from Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy, it is this: Love is not only changed by observation; it is changed for the worse.

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