When we avoid the legitimate suffering that results from dealing with problems, we also avoid the growth that problems demand from us.

Share our similarities, celebrate our differences.

If you are determined not to risk pain, then you must do without many things: having children, getting married, the ecstasy of sex, the hope of ambition, friendship-all that makes life alive, meaningful and significant.

Real love is a permanently self-enlarging experience.

Commitment is inherent in any genuinely loving relationship.

The time and the quality of the time that their parents devote to them indicate to children the degree to which they are valued by their parents. . . . When children know that they are valued, when they truly feel valued in the deepest parts of themselves, then they feel valuable. This knowledge is worth more than any gold.

The will to grow is, in essence, the same phenomenon as love. Genuinely loving people are, by definition, growing people.