Our mother gives us our earliest lessons in love- and its partner, hate. Our father-our "second other"-elaborates on them.

Friends broaden our horizons. They serve as new models with whom we can identify. They allow us to be ourselves-and accept us that way. They enhance our self-esteem because they think we're okay, because we matter to them. And because they matter to us-for various reasons, at various levels of intensity-they enrich the quality of our emotional life.

Being in love is better than being in jail, a dentist's chair, or a holding pattern over Philadelphia, but not if he doesn't love you back.

We have to divide mother love with our brothers and sisters. Our parents can help us cope with the loss of our dream of absolute love. But they cannot make us believe that we haven't lost it.

Love is the same as like except you feel sexier.

It is true that the present is powerfully shaped by the past. But it is also true that ... insight at any age keeps us from singing the same sad songs again.

When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the street, I always hope he's dead.