I had it together on Sunday. By Monday at noon it had cracked. On Tuesday debris Was descending on me. And by Wednesday no part was intact. On Thursday I picked up some pieces. On Friday I picked up the rest. By Saturday, late, It was almost set straight. And on Sunday the world was impressed With how well I had got it together.

We will have to give up the hope that, if we try hard, we somehow will always do right by our children. The connection is imperfect. We will sometimes do wrong.

The need to become a separate self is as urgent as the yearning to merge forever. And as long as we, not our mother, initiate parting, and as long as our mother remains reliably there, it seems possible to risk, and even to revel in, standing alone.

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.

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

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.

Our early lessons in love and our developmental history shape the expectations we bring into marriage.