Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts.

Real friends require honesty, openness, and even vulnerability. They also require attention and simple acts of kindness.

All geniuses born women are lost to the public good.

When one of us tells the truth, he makes it easier for all of us to open our hearts to our pain and that of others.

Courage has become Raiders of the Lost Ark, or riding in spaceships, killing people, taking enormous physical risks. To me, the kind of courage that's really interesting is someone whose spouse has Alzheimer's and yet manages to wake up every morning and be cheerful with that person and respectful of that person and find things to enjoy even though their day is very, very difficult. That kind of courage is really undervalued in our culture.

We live in a world filled with language. Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human community. Writers are either polluters or part of the clean-up team. Just as the language of power and greed has the potential to destroy us, the language of reason and empathy has the power to save us. Writers can inspire a kinder, fairer, more beautiful world, or invite selfishness, stereotyping, and violence. Writers can unite people or divide them.

How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? One, as long as the lightbulb wants to change.