We can glut ourselves with how-to-raise children information . . . strive to become more mature and aware but none of this will spare us from the . . . inevitability that some of the time we are going to fail our children. Because there is a big gap between knowing and doing. Because mature, aware people are imperfect too. Or because some current event in our life may so absorb or depress us that when our children need us we cannot come through.

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.

the lives we lead are determined, for better and worse, by our loss experiences.

Late birds get worms while early birds get tired.

There is a time to separate from our mother. But unless we are ready to separate-unless we are ready to leave her and be left-anything is better than separation.

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.

We cannot love others as others unless we possess suficient self-love, a love we learn from being loved in infancy.