Bad artists ignore the darkness of human existence. Good artists often get stuck there. Great artists embrace the full catastrophe of our condition and find beyond it an even deeper truth of peace, healing, and redemption.

Conflict in close relationships is not only inevitable, it's essential. Intimacy connects people who are inevitably different.

I've developed the habit of mentally listing things that make me optimistic about the future. I do it every day.

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

External circumstances do not create feeling states. Feeling states create external circumstances.

Bracketing has turned all my experiences, remembered and present, into a gallery of miracles where I wander around dazzled by the beauty of events I cannot explain.

People are so afraid of authority figures and doctors are authority figures.