You end up as you deserve. In old age you must put up with the face, the friends, the health, and the children you have earned.

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

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

we love as soon as we learn to distinguish a separate 'you' and 'me.' Love is our attempt to assuage the terror and isolation of that separateness.

Craving that old sweet oneness yet dreading engulfment, wishing to be our mother's and yet be our own, we stormily swing from mood to mood, advancing and retreating-the quintessential model of two-mindedness.

Growing up means letting go of the dearest megalomaniacal dreams of our childhood. Growing up means knowing they can't be fulfilled. Growing up means gaining the wisdom and the skills to get what we want within the limitations imposed by reality - a reality which consists of diminished powers, restricted freedoms and, with the people we love, imperfect connections.

Suffering makes you deep. Travel makes you broad. In case I get my pick, I'd rather travel.