When we run from our feelings, they follow us. Everywhere.

This is the part of us that makes our brief, improbable little lives worth living: the ability to reach through our own isolation and find strength, and comfort, and warmth for and in each other. This is what human beings do. This is what we live for, the way horses live to run.

I have discovered that many of the things I thought were priceless are as cheap as costume jewelry, and much of what I labeled worthless was, all the time, filled with the kind of beauty that directly nourishes my soul... Now I think that the vast majority of us "normal" people spend our lives trashing our treasures and treasuring our trash. We bustle around trying to create the impression that we are hip, imperturbable, omniscient, in perfect control, when in fact we are awkward and scared and bewildered.

My deep belief is that all of us have the same lifelong work: to learn honesty, courage, and love. To learn, in other words, how to be our best selves.

In the moments I get it right, every step I take seems to be matched by a universal mystery, which obligingly, incredibly, creates what I can't.

Most unhappy people need to learn just one lesson: how to see themselves through the lens of genuine compassion, and treat themselves accordingly.

Polite strangers often tell soothing lies about our physical appearance that prevent many of us from facing, discussing and solving our real problems.