In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made

Over and over again mediocrity is promoted because real worth isn't to be found.

One may have been a fool, but there's no foolishness like being bitter.

You can only see one thing clearly, and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that, and cling to it through thick and thin.

We can't give our children the future, strive though we may to make it secure. But we can give them the present.

But in order to have an adult faith, most of us have to outgrow and unlearn much of what we were taught about religion.

Like faith, marriage is a mystery. The person you're committed to spending your life with is known and yet unknown, at the same time remarkably intimate and necessarily other. The classic seven-year itch may not be a case of familiarity breeding ennui and contempt, but the shock of having someone you thought you knew all too well suddenly seem a stranger. When that happens, you are compelled to either recommit to the relationship or get the hell out. There are many such times in a marriage.