Fluidity and discontinuity are central to the reality in which we live.

Insight, I believe, refers to the depth of understanding that comes by setting experiences, yours and mine, familiar and exotic, new and old, side by side, learning by letting them speak to one another.

Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.

Fear is not a good teacher. The lessons of fear are quickly forgotten.

Rarely is it possible to study all of the instructions to a game before beginning to play, or to memorize the manual before turning on the computer. The excitement of improvisation lies not only in the risk of being involved but in the new ideas, as heady as the adrenaline of performance, that seems to come from nowhere.

There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can't think without metaphors.

... as we age we have not only to readdress earlier developmental crises but also somehow to find the way to three affirmations that may seem to conflict. ... We have to affirm our own life. We have to affirm our own death. And we have to affirm love, both given and received.